%0 Journal Article %A Astari, Amalia %A Honings, Rick %T Met Ot en Sien naar Indië %D 2018 %J Internationale Neerlandistiek, %V 56 %N 2 %P 99-120 %@ 2214-5729 %R https://doi.org/10.5117/IN2018.2.001.ASTA %K children’s books %K Dutch East Indies %K Ot and Sien %K Dutch colonial literature %K postcolonial approach %I Amsterdam University Press, %X Abstract Ot and Sien are the main characters of the famous Dutch children’s book Het boek van Ot en Sien [The Book of Ot and Sien] (1906), written by Hindericus Scheepstra and (assisted by) Jan Ligthart. Less known is the fact that in 1911, an edition for the Dutch reading lessons in the Dutch East Indies was published: Ot en Sien in Nederlandsch Oost-Indië [Ot and Sien in the Dutch East Indies] (1911). Both the stories and the illustrations were ‘verindischt’: adapted to the Dutch colonial situation in ‘the East’. Until now, scarcely any attention has been paid to this children’s book in general and to the colonial ideology within this text in particular. This article offers a critical, postcolonial reading of Ot en Sien in Indië, focusing on unequal power relations between the colonizer and colonized people. Which strategies are used by the authors to represent the colony and its people? And to what extent did an ‘innocent’ children’s book play a role in the legitimation of the Dutch colonization? %U https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/10.5117/IN2018.2.001.ASTA