Novel
Never the Twain
Salah Asuhan
Abdoel Moeis · 1928
Synopsis
Hanafi, a young Muslim Minangkabau raised in the European manner, despises the traditions of his family and those of his mother, who lives with him. He loves his childhood friend Corrie du Bussée, the daughter of a Frenchman and a Minangkabau woman, but he is destined for his cousin Rapiah. Rejected by Corrie, he marries Rapiah against his will and behaves brutally towards his family, then leaves for Batavia, where he meets Corrie again and enters the service of the colonial administration.
Context
The novel was published in 1928 by Balai Pustaka, the colonial government's publishing house, which first rejected the manuscript and had it rewritten so that the European characters would appear in a favourable light. Its title means "wrong upbringing". Asrul Sani brought it to the screen in 1972. The Lontar Foundation published it in English in 2010 as Never the Twain, translated by Robin Susanto; no French translation has appeared.
Who it is for
To understand, through a love drama, how the colonised elites were torn between tradition and the West.
Prizes and reception
A. Teeuw ranks it among the three great Indonesian novels of the pre-war period, praising the frankness with which it depicts racism.