The year 2020 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of novelist Multatuli, whose real name was Eduard Douwes Dekker. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) celebrated Multatuli’s jubilee year with a national project on a new, experimental edition of his novel Max Havelaar: a handwritten 'lockdown edition', open for everyone to participate. More than 170 people took part in handwriting this special edition, that came into being during the covid epidemic, a period in which the Netherlands even went into lockdown for awhile.
Job Cohen, former mayor of Amsterdam, and journalist Elsbeth Etty are among the Dutch celebrities who took part and copied the first chapters from home. The writing project is an initiative of Jacqueline Bel, professor of Modern Dutch Literature at VU, in cooperation with curator Willemien van Dijk, from VU's University Library. The project commenced on Monday 15 June 2020. The handwritten edition of Max Havelaar was published in spring 2021.
Lockdown-editie
Alfred Birney, Maxim Februari, Arnon Grunberg, Adriaan van Dis, Dieuwertje Blok, Winnie Sorgdrager and many other (former) politicians, journalists, artists, writers and scientists participated. The Max Havelaar lockdown edition is now part of the special collection Manuscripts and early printed books and digitally available in VU Imagebase. The project also includes an installation of videos that some co-writers made of their writing work and a collection in which participants describe their connection to 'the Max Havelaar'.
The power of text
VU professor Jacqueline Bel has said at the start of the project: “We would like to extend a heartfelt welcome to everyone to literally become a co-writer of this ground-breaking book, to help express just how much Multatuli’s ideas about justice and humanity have become part of Dutch identity. By copying chapters by hand, everyone can experience just how penetrating a text can be."
Watch the video Multatuli: rebel at the foundation of modern Dutch Literature, in which Jacqueline Bel, professor of Modern Dutch Literature at the Vrije Universiteit explains the contribution that Multatuli made to Dutch literature and how the writer, as a critical spirit, fought against social injustice (Dutch with English subtitles).
Watch the video report of the Multatuli Lockdown Project.