Sepucuk Surat dari Hindia Belanda

by Angelina Enny, Arif Fitra Kurniawan, Azhar Riyadi

Di Hindia Belanda, seorang perempuan peranakan menulis surat kepada lelaki Indo. Surat itu berisi penentangannya soal diskriminasi ras dan peredaran opium di era 1930-an. Di sebuah kedai bandar, perkelahian antarpendatang tidak terbendung. Kedai itu pun menjadi saksi ketika para kasim Tiongkok datang menyebarkan agama Islam. Di sebuah kampung, penduduknya doyan mengadu sapi. Lambat laun, untuk mencari sapi aduan terbaik, mereka mengawinkan para sapi, bahkan dengan penunggangnya, hingga tak tersisa seorang pun manusia di sana.

231 pages, Paperback

Published November 12, 2025

About the author

ANGELINA ENNY is a writer from Kotabumi, Lampung, who now resides in Jakarta, Indonesia. Her stories "Nokturnal Melankolia" (Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2017) was named to the Long-list of Kusala Sastra Khatulistiwa. She published the poetry collection "In Between, Di Antara" (Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 2019), alongside Dutch artist Robin Block and translated it into the performance form "A Passage, Sebuah Antara." Her script, "The Fifteenth Night" about the May 1998 riots, was longlisted for the Jakarta Film Fund in 2021. She just wrote "Finding Sita in the Indies" (Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 2024), a novelette on the search for identity during colonial times.

Reviews

[Neysa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three out of five. To be honest, I had expected this book to be historical fiction, as both the title, the covers and the blurb suggested that it would be a collection of short stories within that genre. It turns out that this is not the case. I was rather disappointed, frankly speaking, as I felt somewhat “misled”. Only the first two stories are set in the colonial era, and even these fail to engage the reader, as their narratives are not particularly compelling. Consequently, I found myself confused about the purpose of the title, cover and blurb, were they intended to “trap” readers into expecting something different? I was therefore quite puzzled as to why the jury selected the first and second stories as the top winners of the H. B. Jassin Writing Projects. Meanwhile, the other stories, which reflect Indonesian perspectives more strongly and are far more engaging were not chosen as winners.

The book contains a variety of stories reflecting aspects of Indonesian society; some take the form of personal monologues or psychological reflections, while others are short prose pieces. I must say that I enjoyed several of the short stories, but I also cannot deny that I struggled with about half of the book. Many parts were difficult to understand, and the stories were not engaging enough. It is not quite a good book, nor an easy one to read, to be honest. Therefore, I give it 3.1 out of 5.