Student Hidjo

Student Hidjo (Perfected spelling Student Hijo, both meaning Student Green) is a 1918 novel by Marco Kartodikromo. Originally published as a serial in the newspaper Sinar Hindia, it was republished in book form in 1919 by Masman & Stroink. Written while Kartodikromo was in prison, Student Hidjo tells the story of Hidjo, a Javanese student sent to the Netherlands to study but eventually falls for a Dutchwoman. An intersecting plotline, which unfolds parallel to the main story, follows Dutch administrator Willem Walter in his romantic life. Written in Malay, the novel was one of several by Javanese authors which helped popularise the word "saya" as a first-person personal pronoun. Described by Kartodikromo as an extended simile, Student Hidjo has been noted as depicting a new Indonesian youth culture which has adopted Western cultural and lingual facets. Traditional Javanese and Dutch cultural values are contrasted; from this contrast, Kartodikromo advocates a view that the two are incompatible. This includes love, which is described in the novel as something only those with a Dutch education would attempt to find; the traditional view being that marriage is to be used for social mobility.