The Abrolhos Islands, off the coast of Western Australia, have long fascinated historians and fisherfolk. This is not only because of their isolation, but also because the Dutch East India Company ship, the Batavia, was wrecked there in 1629. Although most passengers and crew survived, many did not escape thirst, starvation, tyranny and murder among those stranded, while a small group used a longboat to reach help in the East Indies (present-day Indonesia).
Daughters of Batavia by a WA writer is the latest book about the Batavia. Koens has used real names of passengers and crew, but her fictional protagonists are contemporary Tess and Batavia passenger Saskia.
In 2018, a grieving Tess leaves her job as a secondary teacher to complete the work her late history professor had begun. She writes an article for a university journal on archaeologists’ research into the islands’ graves.
A personal interest in the disaster was a small silver case belonging to her late mother, adorned with a porcelain pendant painted with a blue tulip. Her father’s research revealed her mother was descended from a 17th-century surgeon who survived the Batavia, and the case was believed to have held his instruments.
The corresponding story concerns Saskia, an adopted, then orphaned, young Dutch woman who in 1628 boarded the Batavia bound for the East Indies, wearing a tulip-decorated porcelain pendant from her birth mother.
Koens’ fiction traces the voyage, the disaster, the seascape and island formations, Saskia’s origins, and how Tess confronts her grief and a possible new relationship.
Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stefanie Koens grew up in a large family in which books and story-telling were treasured. When her novel Daughters of Batavia was awarded the Banjo Prize in 2023, it was the fulfilment of a dream that began at the age of 12 when one of her short stories won a local writing competition.
Although she never lost her love for writing, Stefanie has worked as a teacher, tutor and office administrator.
Stefanie also loves history and is particularly fascinated by family stories, secrets and experiences that interweave past and present.
When she’s not writing, Stefanie loves spending time in the countryside and coast around her home in Perth, Western Australia, especially when this involves faith, family and friends. More often than not, Stefanie can be found absorbed in other writer’s stories.
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