M. T. H. Perelaer
1831–1901
Biography
Michel Théophile Hubert Perelaer was born in Maastricht in 1831 and died in The Hague in 1901. He trained for the priesthood at Rolduc, the Catholic college in Limburg, and then spent many years working in the Dutch East Indies, the colony that is now Indonesia. He wrote in Dutch.
In the Indies he took the side of Multatuli, the pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker, whose novel Max Havelaar attacked the abuses of Dutch colonial rule. Perelaer supported Multatuli’s campaign for fairer treatment of the local population and wrote in its defence. He went on to write novels of his own, the last of them, Een wedstrijd op de oceaan, appearing in 1899. An accusation that he had plagiarised the French naturalist Émile Zola has clouded his reputation since.
The catalogue holds Baboe Dalima. The title means “Nurse Dalima”, using baboe, the word for a nursemaid in the Indies. Readers interested in the colonial debate of the period can see where Perelaer stood in it.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
Baboe Dalima
by M. T. H. Perelaer
On Java the opium monopoly, farmed out to Chinese leaseholders, reaches into every village and government office. Through Dalima, a Javanese nursemaid in a Dutch official's household, and the families around her, Perelaer sets out how the opium trade corrupts officials and ruins…
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.