author
Augusta de Wit
1864–1939
Born in the Dutch East Indies and shaped by years in Java, her writing brings colonial-era Indonesia vividly to life. She is best remembered for Orpheus in de dessa, a novel admired for its close attention to place, culture, and everyday experience.
4 Audiobooks
Natuur en Menschen in Indië
by Augusta de Wit
Orpheus in de Dessa
by Augusta de Wit
Java, Facts and Fancies
by Augusta de Wit
De drie vrouwen in het Heilige Woud
by Augusta de Wit
About the author
Born in Sibolga, Sumatra, in 1864, Augusta de Wit was a Dutch writer, journalist, translator, and teacher. She spent part of her life in the Dutch East Indies and became especially known for books and essays about Java and Bali, drawing on firsthand knowledge of the region.
Her best-known work is Orpheus in de dessa (1903). Alongside fiction, she also wrote travel pieces and cultural commentary, often focusing on the landscapes and social worlds of Indonesia as they were understood in her time.
De Wit died in Baarn in 1939. Today she is remembered as a distinctive Dutch literary voice whose work connects European readers with the history and atmosphere of colonial Java.