Max Havelaar

Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company

Front cover of Max Havelaar, 5th edition (1881)
Author	Multatuli
Original title	Max Havelaar, of de koffi-veilingen der Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappy
Language	Dutch Indonesian (From 1972)
Genre	Political Novel
Publisher	J. de Ruyter K.H. Schadd G.L. Funke Publishing Company Elsevier Van Munster and Zonen Edmonston Bas Lubberhuizen
Publication date	1860
Publication place	Netherlands

Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (Dutch: Max Havelaar; of, De koffi-veilingen der Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappy) is an 1860 novel by Multatuli (the pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker), which played a key role in shaping and modifying Dutch colonial policy in the Dutch East Indies in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In the novel, the protagonist, Max Havelaar, tries to battle against a corrupt government system in Java, which was then a Dutch colony. The novel's opening line is famous: "Ik ben makelaar in koffie, en woon op de Lauriergracht, Nº 37." ("I am a coffee broker, and live on the Lauriergracht, Nº 37.").^[1][2]