REVISITING A PRIVATE PUBLISHING HOUSE IN THE INDONESIAN COLONIAL PERIOD: Penjiaran Ilmoe

The activities of Penjiaran Ilmoe, a private publishing house in West Sumatra in the late colonial period (1938–1942) were an important contribution to Indonesian intellectual and literary development. Its publications encompassed political, religious and social issues as well as literature, and included both textbooks and books for general readers. Although relatively free from colonial government control because of its location in a peripheral area, Penjiaran Ilmoe was prosecuted by the colonial government for alleged offences against religious parties and the government. This article aims to further the understanding of the history of Indonesian literature through a discussion of Penjiaran Ilmoe, its staff, writers, publications and book distribution system. Its books and periodicals, particularly the popular Roman Pergaoelan series, form the primary source material of this study.