Fatimah Hasan Delais

Fatimah Hasan Delais (1915-1953), also known by the pen name Hamidah, was an Indonesian novelist and poet. Her novel Kehilangan mestika (Indonesian: Loss of the jewel), 1935, was among the first by a female author to be published by Balai Pustaka; she was one of only a handful of Indonesian women authors to be published at all in the Dutch East Indies, alongside Saadah Alim, Sariamin Ismail, Soewarsih Djojopoespito and a few others.

Biography Early life Fatimah was born in Muntok, Bangka Island, Dutch East Indies on June 13, 1915. She was educated in the Meisjes Normaalschool, a Dutch school for girls in Padang Panjang, West Sumatra. Hassan, who was apparently from Bengkulu, was also briefly editor of a newspaper in Palembang called Semangat Moeda in 1929-30. He may have been a follower of Ahmadiyya Islam and involved in the publication of an Ahmadiyya magazine Sinar Islam in the early 1930s. After that, Fatimah also taught at a Taman Siswa school until the start of the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies. Alongside Sariamin Ismail and Suwarsih Djojopuspito, Fatimah was among the first Indonesian women novelists.

She also became the local Palembang assistant for the avant-garde literary magazine Poedjangga Baroe, which also published some of her poetry in the mid-1930s. Her poetry also continued to be reprinted in collections, including a 1963 anthology of Pandji Poestaka poetry edited by HB Jassin, and a 1987 anthology of modern Indonesian poetry edited by Linus Suryadi AG.