Abé Sahetapy’s publication “Passie, een strijd met woorden” is an intense exploration of resistance and perseverance. What began more than forty years ago as a handwritten manuscript has now, after a careful rewriting process between 2018 and 2025, developed into his eighth book. The long journey of this work reflects its central theme: steadfastness in the face of oppression.

The story, which takes place in Indonesia, Australia, and indirectly in the United States, weaves together historical struggles with current developments in Indonesia. In doing so, Sahetapy creates a mirror for the present, in which old conflicts and new uprisings intersect. The choice of a Moluccan woman as the main character is significant: she embodies not only the strength and perseverance of Moluccan women, but also symbolizes a broader, often underexposed female dimension in the struggle for freedom.

This novel is more than fiction; it is both a tribute and a political statement in literary form. Sahetapy shows how personal history and collective memory are intertwined, and how words, once liberated, can wage their own struggle. At the book presentation on 25 November 2025 at the Moluccan Museum in The Hague, the moment arrived when past and present, personal and national stories, came together in a powerful literary testimony.