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This article focuses on ‘tempo doeloe’, a mode of nostalgia to the Dutch East Indies (colonial Indonesia) in contemporary Dutch literature. The phrase ‘tempo doeloe’ denotes ‘the good old days’ in Pasar Malay, the colloquial colonial language that was used in the Dutch East Indies. The article examines some of the historically contingent dimensions, mnemonic features and ideological complexities of tempo doeloe. Particular attention is devoted, first, to how tempo doeloe is constitutive of a memorial community of repatriates in the Netherlands, and second, to how notions of authenticity and beauty are critically imbued with this particular type of nostalgia. The aim is to gain a better insight into tempo doeloe as a historically contingent Dutch mode of nostalgia for empire and to review some of the recent theoretical perspectives on possible intersections between memory and the postcolonial.

<p>Exploring the intersections of memory, gender, and the postcolonial, <i>Colonial Memory</i> explores the phenomenon of colonial memory through the specific genre of women's travel writing. Building on criticism of memory and travel writing, Sarah De Mul seeks to open Dutch literature to postcolonial themes and concepts and to insert the history of the Dutch colonies and its critical recollection into the traditionally Anglophone-dominated field of postcolonial studies.</p><div>A vividly conceived and theoretically astute reading of the complicated weavings between the past and present involved in memory work and the process of nostalgic return. Elleke Boehmer, University of Oxford</div>

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