The Tea Lords

Author(s): Hella S Haasse

Location(s): Java

Genre(s): Fiction, Historical

Era(s): Late 1800s

Location

Content

This Java-set saga of Dutch colonists in the late 1800s is a compelling piece of innovative historical fiction. At its heart is Rudolf Kerkhoven, who finds himself master of a plantation in Java’s Preanger region. Haasse effortlessly combines an evocation of the plantation’s lush vegetation with her articulation of the growing distance between Kerkhoven and his wife. This is a novel about men and their love for their land. It is also a powerful portrait of one man carving out his autocratic rule as the “King of the Preanger”. Lucy Scholes, the Sunday Times, November 2011.

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Book Reviews

Lead Review

Haasse is really well known in Holland and she is a great writer, well translated and it is a pity she seems so little known elsewhere! This is a lush novel, lush in all...

Read review

A slow and mellifluous book

This book moves along slowly and follows the path of Rudolf as he moves to Java to work on the tea/coffe plantations – and his hope to be able to work on the plantation at Ardjasari, run by his...