Heather Sutherland

Heather Amanda Sutherland (born 1943) is an Australian historian and former professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. She specialised in the history of Indonesia, and also researched that of other Southeast Asian countries. She is the long-term partner of British-Australian actress Miriam Margolyes.

Biography Sutherland was born in 1943. She took up Asian studies at the Australian National University in Canberra, obtaining an M.A. in 1967. Her dissertation was on the literary intellectuals of Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies. Her research about Dutch history and her visit to the Netherlands inspired her to work there for most of her later career. In 1970, she started her academic career as a history teacher at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Under Benda, Sutherland earned her doctoral degree in 1973 on the thesis titled "Pangreh Pradja: Java's indigenous administrative corps and its role in the last decades of Dutch colonial rule." She continued teaching at the University of Malaya for one year. However, they do not live together and spend sporadic periods in London, Tuscany, and Australia. Margolyes described Sutherland as an "introvert" and the secret to their lasting relationship as "not living together."

Publications

Key research papers

Books

(with Gerrit Knaap)