author
Giovanni Battista Cerruti
1850–1914
An Italian explorer and travel writer, he turned years of seafaring and life in Southeast Asia into vivid firsthand accounts of places and peoples little known to European readers of his time.
1 Audiobook
My Friends the Savages Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula)
by Giovanni Battista Cerruti
About the author
Born in Varazze on November 28, 1850, Giovanni Battista Cerruti was an Italian explorer whose life took him far from Liguria to the ports, forests, and settlements of Southeast Asia. Sources agree that he died in Penang on June 28, 1914, and that he is best remembered for his work as a traveler and observer of the region.
Accounts of his career describe an adventurous early life at sea, followed by years spent in Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, and British Malaya. His writing drew on direct experience rather than armchair research, which gives it an immediate, practical feel even when it reflects the attitudes of its era.
Cerruti is especially associated with My Friends the Savages (1908), a book based on his observations in the Malay Peninsula. For listeners interested in older travel literature, his work offers a mix of exploration, ethnographic description, and personal memoir from a period when European readers were eager for reports from beyond their own world.