Flowering Lotus

A View of Java

by Harold Forster

Longmans, Green and Co, 1958, [First Edition], black and white photographic plates, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, minor rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, previous owners’ details stamped on front endpaper, price clipped dustjacket in very good condition (see photographs)

“In the autumn of 1952, Harold Forster and his Greek-born wife arrived in the recently created Republic of Indonesia, where he was to become the first Lecturer in English in Java’s rapidly growing National University at JogJakarta, just celebrating the third birthday of its official foundation.
Jogjakarta, a primitive city of the East forced now to expand and to learn some of the ways of the West and of the modern world, was the sanctuary of Java’s ancient traditions, the city of her Sultans, the cradle of Indonesia’s independence.  Loving and working here for four years, the Forsters, adventurous, alert and friendly, soon fell under the spell of Jogja, met her people, observed their customs, studied the institutions of their mixed heritage, their dance forms, their puppet drama: and faring far afield, travelled through Java, visiting shrines and other cities, and seeing something of the countryside.  A holiday took them to Bali, which they found a demi-paradise, a dream island where every craft was an art and every man a special kind of artist.”