Tjalie Robinson is the main alias of the Indo (Eurasian) intellectual and writer Jan Boon (10 January 1911 – 22 April 1974) also known as Vincent Mahieu.
His father Cornelis Boon, a Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) sergeant, was Dutch and his Indo-European mother Fela Robinson was part Scottish and Javanese.
After completing college and obligatory military service[3] he married[4] and went on to become a teacher at the so-called 'Wild (unsubsidised) Schools' on Java and Sumatra.
It was one of the leading newspapers in the Dutch East Indies which also employed other important Indo writers like Karel Zaalberg, Ernest Douwes Dekker and Victor Ido.
During World War II (1942–1945) Robinson was interned in various Japanese concentration camps such as Tjimahi and the infamous Changi Prison, where he continued writing.
He was part of a small group of intellectuals (including Leo Vroman and Rob Nieuwenhuys) that engaged in cultural activity.
"[8] After the war he survived the bedlam of the Bersiap period (1945–1946) and even worked as editor in chief for the magazine Wapenbroeders (Brothers in Arms), where he was also the creator of the popular 'Taaie & Neut' cartoon series.
[9] In 1946 he was promoted to captain and served as war correspondent for the KNIL's Public Relations Office (Dutch: Leger voorlichtings dienst) in amongst others the volatile region of Kediri, East Java.
Scholar, translator and poet E.M. Beekman[14] describes the work as: "These stories show a refined talent, a powerful imagination, an inquisitive intellect and a whole lot of feeling.
'Piekerans' (Musings) is the Petjok word Tjalie Robinson used to name his weekly essays in the newspaper, which in essence do not significantly differ from the work of his famous Dutch contemporary in the Netherlands Simon Carmiggelt.
Initially he wrote columns reflecting on repatriation in Dutch newspaper 'Het Parool', where he became a direct colleague of Simon Carmiggelt, and simultaneously kept catering for the Indos still in Indonesia by writing for Surabaya based 'De Vrije Pers' (The Free Press).
[20] When in 1960 and 1961 he published his best-known work, respectively the books Tjies and Tjoek, Dutch literary critics immediately praised his style and narrative.
Tjalie Robinson himself consequently decided to give all his focus to the advancement of the Indo community in diaspora and the social objectives he coupled to that, by solely publishing in his own magazine.
Tjalie Robinson has been attributed to having single-handedly preserved the historic hybrid Indo culture of the Dutch East Indies in literature.[23]...
He also sympathised with the philosophical writings of the Spanish essayist Jose Ortega y Gasset, an outspoken proponent of perspectivism and in 1961 even initiated the creation of an Indo enclave in Spain, named 'El Atabal'.
(as well as other Southern United States authors like Faulkner and Eudora Welty), who appropriately wrote that "great talent can put a small local history into a universal light".
[29] In his analysis of Tjalie Robinson professor E.M. Beekman also pointed out that he quite often cited or referred to American authors like: Mark Twain, Henry Miller, Tennessee Williams, T. S. Eliot and even Robert Frost when he was still an unknown writer in Europe.
[15] To save the Dutch 'Tong Tong' magazine that was suffering from a dwindling number of subscribers he returned to the Netherlands in 1968, where he spent the final years of his life.
The necrology of this "avant garde visionary" reads: "In The Hague at the age of 63 Indo journalist and author Tjalie Robinson passed away.
[31] Part of his literary legacy is the fact that he wrote much of his work in the Indo mix language called Petjok, also known as petjo or pecuk, giving it a status that it never had in the Dutch East Indies and providing academic linguistic research a substantial database.
... an outstanding figure who helped shape and pass on the legacy of the Dutch colonial past from the East Indies, Tjalie Robinson.
)[34]His greatest achievement as described by Kousbroek may have been that he was: "... the only one that has restored their (Indo) self respect and granted us insight into their culture and has written about it with the hand of a master.
[40][41] In 2009 commemorating Tjalie Robinson's death 35 years ago a modern multi-media theater play based on his stories was performed in Bandung and Jakarta, Indonesia.
[44][45] This Dutch and English language magazine is still an official body of the Indo Community Center 'De Soos', established by Tjalie Robinson in 1963.