THE SONGBIRD AND THE RAMBUTAN TREE

Eleven-year-old, Batavia-born Dutch national Emmeline Abendanon has been unable to sing since her mother’s death.

Despite the looming threat of the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia), Emmy refuses to leave for vocal training at a prestigious school in England. She clings to the familiar, including Javanese best friend Bakti, the son of a family servant. But Emmy soon learns uncomfortable truths about her life of privilege and the systemic discrimination and exploitation non-Europeans like Bakti face under colonial rule. When the 1942 Dutch surrender results in Japanese occupation, Emmy ends up in the Tjideng prisoner-of-war camp for women and children, where she must find the strength and will to survive. Drawing from her grandmother’s account of living in what is now Jakarta and surviving Tjideng, debut author Abendanon weaves a compelling narrative that highlights the experience of many white European and Australian prisoners of war. Yet, despite cultivating Emmy’s awakening to a broader view of her position in the Dutch colonial hierarchy, the ending oversimplifies and elides critical nuances. The narrative also suffers from a lack of cultural texture, failing to convey the setting’s ethnic and religious diversity. The author’s personal and historical notes add some context but fall short in communicating the broader history of the Dutch state, the Indonesian archipelago under the Dutch East India Company, and the Indonesian independence movement.

A flawed but engaging narrative that broadens readers’ understanding of the geographic reach of World War II.