Max Havelaar
''
Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company'' () 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.").
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