The broken coloniser

Abstract

ABSTRACT Dutch colonial understanding of the Dutch East Indies has rarely taken into consideration the experiences and influences of returnees and of colonialists originating outside the Netherlands’ political centre. In this article we make a case of how Frisian novels from the colonial period might provide a solution to this paucity of original data, as they have rarely been analysed in relation to colonialism. We take, as a case study, the work of the Frisian author Nyckle Haisma (1907–1943), who lived in the Dutch East Indies between 1930–1935 and 1936–1943 and wrote Peke Donia, de koloniaal based upon his unsuccessful, temporary return to Friesland in 1935. Haisma’s novel depicts the former colony as a catalyst that breaks the ability of the main protagonist to reintegrate into his home province. In addition, it constructs a paradox between the provinces of Holland and Friesland and deploys the author’s inability to integrate into Friesland as a result of his imaginary Dutch East Indies that he has created in opposition to his own homeland. Following the award of the highest literary prize of Frisian literature – the Gysbert Japicxpriis – in 1948, Haisma’s writings became embedded into the Frisian literary landscape, yet the colonial discourse apparent in the work was left unquestioned. We argue that the effects of colonialism, as portrayed in Peke Donia, must be considered when studying the Netherlands’ colonial legacies and their interplay with Dutch society in contemporary times.