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In the Dutch Caribbean –on the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao– an authentic Creole is spoken: Papiamentu. Ever since the days of the abolition of slavery in 1863, texts in this language have been published. Amongst these texts are stories and tales, poems, occasional verse, essays, novels, pamphlets, songs and dialogues for staging, that with an enthusiastic reception were or have been labelled as “literature". These literary texts testify how the people looked at themselves and their fellow islanders of various ethnic groups, their defective past, emerging developments and promising ideals, at visiting outsiders, at the outside world in general, and their mother country, the Netherlands, in particular. This article is a bird's-eye view to acquaint yourself with those texts that are ever so many reflections of an innate diversity of strong sentiments and stark ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a look at the efforts by Antillean author Elis Juliana in documenting, compiling, collecting, and enacting the culture of his native Curaçao. Among his achievements were opening a political and educational space for his beloved Papiamentu and foregrounding its cultural heritage, oral traditions, slavery, and its songs that mark those times long past. A description and examples of his poems are also presented.

The article provides an overview of ideology and writing in Papiamentu in the Netherlands Antilles. The publication of the "St. Eustatius Gazette" in Curaçcao was established in 1816, whose volumes form an invaluable source of socio-cultural, political, and economic information. It is stated that the first original texts from Dutch Antillean soil to be qualified as literature were in Spanish. Later on, the concept of creolization dominated literary writing both in Papiamentu and in Dutch.

Discusses the importance of poetry in the Creole language, Papiamentu to the inhabitants of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. Information on Papiamentu, which evolved as the indigenous language; Establishment of the Papiamentu literary and cultural magazine `Simadan'; Importance of the magazine to Antilleans, in an effort to manifest themselves.

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including a set of translations of poems and orature originally in Papiamentu and another by Aart Broek which provides an overview of literary writing in Papiamentu.