This spellbinding story, like its predecessor, This Earth of Mankind, has its origins in a series of tales related orally by Pramoedya Ananta Toer to his fellow prisoners in an Indonesian prison.

Child of All Nations follows the political awakening of its hero, the extraordinairy Minke, a Dutch-educated Javanese writer. Coming to grips with the oppression and in justice of the European regima in his country, Minke struggles to assert his voice and the voices of his people—but he is met at every turn by the corruption of those he trusted and by the tragedies that befall those he loves most.