Borneo van Zuid naar Noord : Ethnografische Roman

A gritty, late‑19th‑century military outpost on the edge of Borneo becomes the backdrop for a tense investigation. Lieutenant van den Klein, heavy‑handed yet oddly reflective, pores over a sparse roster of four missing men—two educated Swiss, a Belgian gunsmith, and a mysterious local named Johannes—while the camp’s routine drifts between boredom and nervous suspicion. The narrative opens with a terse report, a hurried search, and a cryptic letter that hints at deeper currents of desertion, betrayal, and the hidden economies of a remote frontier.

Through spare, almost documentary prose, the story paints a vivid tableau of colonial bureaucracy, the clash of cultures, and the uneasy alliances forged in the jungle’s shadow. The characters—cynical sergeants, a shrewd Chinese trader named Baba Poetjieng, and restless soldiers—are drawn with a dry humor that underscores their weariness and the thin line between order and chaos. Listeners are pulled into an atmosphere rich with rust‑leather uniforms, humid air, and the low hum of unanswered questions that promise further intrigue as the investigation proceeds.