Sunbirds by Mirandi Riwoe (UQ Press, 2023) is a historical fiction novel set in the early 1940s in Java. The novel opens with protagonist Anna van Hoorn fleeing the Japanese Occupation of the Indies for the safety of Australia. Near the Australian coast, Anna’s plane is caught up in the Japanese attack on Broome. Quickly, the story steps back in time to Anna’s last months in the Indies, where Anna navigated coming of age in the Dutch colony on the eve of war.
A ‘European’ girl with mixed Dutch-Chinese-Indonesian heritage, Anna finds herself caught between her desires and the need to conform to colonial social expectations about love and ‘proper’ relationships. Mattijs, a young Dutch pilot recently arrived in the Indies, hopes to build a future for himself in the Dutch colony. Is there a future for him and Anna together? And what about Anna’s eagerness to connect with the Indonesians around her? Meanwhile, the Van Hoorns’ Indonesian housekeeper and Anna’s friend, Diah, must navigate competing loyalties to her employers and to her pro-independence brother. But Diah also has her own dreams that she hopes to one day realise. Throughout the novel secrets threaten to come out and destabilise the characters’ relationships.
Sunbirds by Mirandi Riwoe peels back the layers of colonial Indies society, revealing the complexity of social and familial relationships in the late-colonial period. This book is a must-read for readers interested in Dutch-Australian connections or Dutch colonial history.
