author
Jacob Dermout
1862–1915
Known for novels set in the Dutch East Indies, this little-remembered Dutch writer brought colonial-era Java and The Hague into his fiction. His surviving work suggests a sharp eye for social life and for the tensions between Europe and the Indies.
3 Audiobooks
Piong Pan Ho: Oorspronkelijke Indische roman
by Jacob Dermout
In de koffie: Oorspronkelijke Indische Roman
by Jacob Dermout
Moderne schelmen (Indië in Den Haag): Oorspronkelijke roman
by Jacob Dermout
About the author
Born on 15 April 1862 in Zeist, Jacob Dermout was a Dutch author whose books are closely tied to the world of the Dutch East Indies. He is credited with works including In de koffie (1893), Piong Pan Ho, and Moderne schelmen, later brought together in modern reprints as Indische verhalen.
The novels associated with him are set partly in Java and partly in the social world around the Indies, mixing adventure, colonial life, and satire. Even from the limited surviving record available online, he comes across as a writer interested in everyday ambitions, status, and the uneasy connection between the colony and the Netherlands.
Public archival records also confirm that he lived from 1862 to 1915 and that he married Alida Constance Hutschler in 1899. Reliable biographical information about his life appears to be quite sparse, so much of his profile today rests on the fiction he left behind rather than on a detailed personal history.