Print, Poetics and Politics A Sumatran Epic in the Colonial Indies and New Order Indonesia

This study presents the text and first English translation of a book published in Batak in 1941 by the novelist and newspaperman M.J. Soetan Hasoendoetan. Based on a Sumatran turi-turian or chanted epic of Datuk Tuongku, it gave southern Batak readers a great literary epic of their own to claim within Indies literatures.