Like a Fish Gasping for Water
The Letters of a Temporary Spouse From Bengkulu
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 18975484 |
|---|---|
| Authors | E Ulrich Kratz |
| Year | 2006 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 100 |
| Pages | 247-280 |
| Publication date | 2006-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Indonesia and the Malay World (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1363-9811 • E-ISSN: 1469-8382 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13639810601130119 |
| OpenAlex | W1969948020 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 4 |
The article introduces six Malay letters from 1784 and 1785 which were sent by Ence' Lena of Bengkulu to John Marsden, the elder brother of William Marsden. The letters express in moving words the personal loss and dislocation of a local woman, whose spouse of many years has left her to return to Europe, taking with him two of their three children. The documents are important for several reasons: they give a personal voice to a late 18th-century Muslim female individual from West Sumatra; they contribute to our knowledge of the Malay epistolary in general and provide a historical context to the nature and uses of the Malay language in particular; they throw light on an aspect of British and Asian relations for which we lack contemporary accounts in European languages; they bring the day-to-day life of British settlements around the Bay of Bengal in the late 18th century into focus; and, last but not least, they raise challenging questions about the lives of John and William Marsden
Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Bay · BENGAL · Biology · Brother · Celtic languages · Dowry · Fish · Genealogy · Human settlement · Linguistics · Literature · Malay · Poetry · Political science · Sociology · Spouse · Anthropology · Asian Studies and History · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,28 |
| Citation span | 2008 - 2019 (12) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |