About the author:
Hanna Rambe, born 1940 in Jakarta, Indonesia, is an author of biographies and historical novels. A focus is on the history of Indonesia and particularly the early times of trade, occupation and exploitation by Dutch traders during the 17th century. For many years she was a journalist of two well-known Indonesian newspapers, one of them the "Sinar Harapan" (Jakarta). Her travels around the East Indonesian islands provided her with knowledge about local nature and life of indigenous people. In her novels she could make use of this expertise with an outcome of descriptions of the beauty of nature and the perspective of indigenous people and their local traditions.
Currently, Hanna Rambe works on a three-volume historical novel set in seventeenth-century Eastern Indonesia. 

About the book:
Indonesian title (original): Aimuna dan Sobori
Publisher: Yayasan Obor, Jakarta, 2013
ISBN 978-979-461-854-7
480 print pages
English title: Cloves for Kolosia
English translation by Miagina Amal
San Mateo, CA: Dalang Publishing, 2015
ISBN 978-0-9836273-8-8
334 print pages

Please Note: With the author's permission, English translator Miagina Amal, herself specialized on Indonesian history and culture, reduced redundant parts of the original text. The close cooperation between Hanna Rambe, Miagina Amal, and publisher Lian Gouw, results in a book which fits European readership. Thus, the translation into German will be based on the English version. 

Synopsis
The novel is set in the 17th century when the Dutch traders company VOC entered the trade with the spices cloves, nutmeg and mace. These spices only grew in East Indonesia in the Maluccu islands. For centuries, spice trade had already dominated the trade network between Asian countries, mostly in a peaceful way; via routes through the Middle East and the Mediterranean the spices had reached Europe and aroused the greed to get direct access. Starting in 16th century, Europeans, Portuguese and later the Netherlands, conducted cruel, violent and inhuman exploitation of the inhabitants of the spice islands. They claimed monopoly of spice trade, and, following the demands of economy and the control of prices, they destroyed plantations of the locals.
The story of the novel is set in this time of menace, brutality, fear and suffering of the local people during the 17th century. After a plunder expedition of the VOC, three members of a village that had been destroyed village struggle for their lives by walking about in their island and searching for help by other villages. On the other side, the novel narrates the attitudes and actions of the Dutch, a protagonist being the new VOC administrator of the region who is torn apart between his official duty and the injustice against the local people. The two different perspectives - the life of exploited simple people and the life of a high-status controller of the exploitations, are reflected in alternating chapters set in the respective context. The empathic language of the writer, suiting each of the two perspectives, and embellished by descriptions of the beauty of nature, renders a lively picture of time and place.
The fictive novel renders deep and concrete insight into the history of spice trade whose impacts and effects on a global stage are not much known to a European audience.

Preliminary title of the German translation: Gewürz der Insel (= Spice of the Island)

Translator Lydia Kieven presented the book in our pitching session on 29 June 2023.

For further information please contact:

Dr Lydia Kieven
On this website
Tel. +49 (0)221 409626 /
Mob. +49 (0)176 504 666 04
Website: www.lydia-kieven.com