Rima Orie: The unknown history of Suriname explored in a fantasy world


It started with a single scene; a flash, nothing more. Priya, my main character, running through the rainforest, anxiously looking back over her shoulder at something – or someone – that is chasing her. Afterwards, more details came to me. She was wearing a military uniform, she was armed, and her skin glowed with a red hue.
There was clearly a story hidden within that scene. And there are authors who would immediately dive into Priya and her story, but that is not how my brain works. I am a writer who initially mainly works with concept and themes, and not as much with characters and plotlines. I require a world before I can write anything else. Priya was in the picture from the first moment on, but to discover who she exactly was and what she stood for, I needed to create the world she grew up in. I ended up with Arawan: a fantasy country based on colonial Suriname.
The choice for colonial Suriname did not come out of nowhere. As is the case for many authors of color, I spent a lot of time writing stories with white main characters, especially when I was younger. I was lucky, in a way, to also read in English from an early age on. When I was about 17 years old, the diversity movement started to gain traction in the USA. Specifically, there was increased awareness for books with main characters of color, written by authors of color. It was as if a new world had opened up to me. And more importantly: I realized that I had never written about characters that looked like me. I would have realized this much later had I only read in Dutch, as the Dutch book world tends to lag behind on this topic. Thanks to the books of authors such as Sabaa Tahir, Roshani Choksi and Angie Thomas I would never ignore my own cultural background again.
My parents were born in Suriname at a time when the country was still under (colonial) Dutch rule. My ancestors originally hailed from India, at a time when that country was still ruled by the British empire. After slavery had been abolished and the Afro-Surinamese people were ‘free’, the Dutch needed new people to work on their plantations, which is why they brought contract laborers from Indonesia, China, and (with permission from the British empire) India to Suriname. With false pretenses and empty promises these people were lured to work day and night for the Dutch. At the time, they had no idea how terrible their fate would be in this tropical country bordering on Brazil. Due to the migration of all these people to Suriname, the country became a melting pot of different cultures from all over the world. These days, the Afro-Surinamese people, hailing from Africa, the Indian people called ‘Hindostanen’, Chinese people, Javanese people from Indonesia, and the original inhabitants of Suriname all co-exist alongside one another.
During the colonial period, the population groups were kept separate, each oppressed in a different way and even set against each other. That was part of the divide and rule strategy that many colonial powers used. The language barrier and cultural differences between the different peoples also ensured that they rarely mixed with each other. My theory is that because of that, they were never able to fight together for their freedom. Separately, various uprisings and freedom movements did arise. The best known is the guerrilla war that the escaped slaves waged against the colonists from their base in the rainforest.
The interesting – and tragic – part is that I never learned the history of the oppressed peoples in high school. At least not the full story. During my history lessons, this dark period was referred to as ‘The (Dutch) Golden Age’. Since from a Dutch perspective, which was the only perspective that mattered, this was a time full of prosperity and wealth. That is why I wanted to do something with the perspective of the oppressed peoples and make their – and mine – story more visible. However, I did not want to write historical fiction since the question that occupied me the most was: ‘What Suriname would have looked like if the oppressed peoples had been able to work together in their struggle for freedom?’ What would that look like?
Suddenly the image of Priya, running through the rainforest, came back to me and the puzzle in my head filled in further. I wanted an alternative history of Suriname, in an alternative world where more was possible. I wanted stories about mythical Surinamese creatures and legends woven into the story. And I wanted to hide metaphors within monsters and magic. I started reading more and more about Suriname. I read lots of stories that the different ethnic groups told each other and tried to find the truth in the absurd. Because there is always a truth hidden in a seemingly made-up story. During my trips to Suriname, I visited old plantations, museums and traveled deep into the rainforest. For a long time, I kept puzzling and refining until Awaran felt as real to me as the Netherlands and Suriname. (By that time my parents had had enough of all my questions, by the way). And once Awaran existed, Priya started telling me her story. All I had to do was write it down for her.
Within the Heart of Wicked Creatures by Rima Orie (Out now in paperback, Ink Road)
Rima Orie began writing on Wattpad, where her stories gathered thousands of views, and in 2018 she was selected out of 300 entries as the winner of the Moon Uitgeverij YA competition to publish her first novel, THE ROGUE PRINCE. This was nominated for the Young Adult Boek van het Jaar, the youth literature prize in Ghent, Belgium (known as De Kleine Cervantes), the Hebban (a Dutch bookseller chain) debut novel prize and the Dutch Book Week for Youth list. Her second novel, IN THE CURSED HART, published in 2022 and she is working on the follow-up. Alongside her writing career, she works in The Hague for the Ministry of Safety and Justice. Instagram @rimaoriebooks TikTok @rimaorie