Zonder Lentera
By Kwee Tek Hoay
Cover: Mas Pirngadi - 'Indonesian landscape', signed and dated '25 lower right, canvas by Mas Pirngadi (1875-1936) · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
A Chinese wijkmeester, the ward officer who collects taxes for the Dutch and is disliked by those he taxes, is drawn into a police case in Batavia. Kwee Tek Hoay's novel of 1930, in the Malay of the Peranakan Chinese, ends with the officer dismissed and the over-eager policeman demoted for blaming an innocent man. This book uses the racial and other slurs of its period as written; the Book Guide explains these words where they occur.
Summary written with Claude Sonnet 5.5.