Max Havelaar

About “Max Havelaar”

Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company is an 1860 novel by Multatuli. It played a key role in shaping and modifying Dutch colonial policy in the Dutch East Indies during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The story follows the protagonist, Max Havelaar, who attempts to fight against a corrupt government system in Java, then a Dutch colony. The novel begins with the line: "Ik ben makelaar in koffie, en woon op de Lauriergracht, Nº 37." (Summary adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.)