author
Multatuli
1820–1887
Best known for Max Havelaar, he turned his own experience in the Dutch East Indies into one of the sharpest attacks on colonial abuse in European literature. Writing under the name Multatuli, he became a bold, restless voice in Dutch letters.
8 Audiobooks
Max Havelaar
by Multatuli
Specialiteiten
by Multatuli
Walter Pieterse: A Story of Holland
by Multatuli
About the author
Born Eduard Douwes Dekker in Amsterdam in 1820, he wrote under the pen name Multatuli, a Latin name often translated as "I have suffered much." He spent years working in the Dutch East Indies as a colonial official, and those experiences shaped the anger and moral force of his writing.
His most famous book, Max Havelaar (1860), exposed corruption and exploitation in the Dutch colonial system in what is now Indonesia. The novel made him one of the Netherlands' most important writers and gave his work a lasting place in debates about literature, justice, and empire.
He also wrote essays, stories, and later works including Minnebrieven and Woutertje Pieterse. Multatuli died in Germany in 1887, but his work still feels strikingly alive for the way it mixes satire, passion, and a fierce sense of conscience.