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Title: The Rainbow Troops

Author: Andrea Hirata

Narrator: Kenneth Moraleda

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-01-14

Publisher: Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Ikal is a student at Muhammadiyah Elementary, on the Indonesian island of Belitong, where graduating from sixth grade is considered a major achievement. His school is under constant threat of closure. In fact, Ikal and his friends - a group called The Rainbow Troops - face threats from every angle: pessimistic, corrupt government officials; greedy corporations hardly distinguishable from the colonialism they've replaced; deepening poverty and crumbling infrastructure; and their own faltering self-confidence. But in the form of two extraordinary teachers, they also have hope, and Ikal's education is an uplifting one, in and out of the classroom. You will cheer for Ikal and his friends as they defy the town's powerful tin miners. Meet his first love - a hand with half-moon fingernails that passes him the chalk his teacher sent him to buy. You will roar in support of Lintang, the class's barefoot maths genius, as he bests the rich company children in an academic challenge. First published in Indonesia, The Rainbow Troops went on to sell over 5 million copies. Now it is set to captivate listeners across the globe. This is classic storytelling: an engrossing depiction of a world not often encountered, bursting with charm and verve.

Critic Reviews:

"This is a charming and uplifting book, full of exotic Indonesian words, references to Islamic prayer times and ethnic groups that peacefully coexist (Malays, Chinese immigrants, native Sawangs). It makes for a refreshing break from the middle-class navel-gazing of most Western fiction." (

The Economist)

"The Rainbow Troops has become a cult novel in its own country and is the first Indonesian novel to find its way into the international general fiction market. It's a coming-of-age novel, a beautiful little love story, and a David and Goliath tale about courage, persistence, loyalty and dedication, and, most of all, the value and power of education. If it were not so gently told, this story would also be a savage critique of corporate greed and government corruption, but it's easy enough for the reader to see the grotesque gap between rich and poor without having it spelt out. A poetic evocation of a brutal life." (

The Sydney Morning Herald)

Members Reviews:

It all begins here

I saw an interview with the author on Japan's NKH news. They showed him walking through an Indonesian village where he was honored and recognized as that country's premier modern author.

I was pleased by the novel's swift movement consisting of brief chapters. They quickly set up the locale and the heroes within who strive to learn and preserve their schoolhouse. In between the story of schoolchildren yearning for a larger life, Hirata deftly relates the tragic tale of Indonesia's tin industry. How the haves quickly set up shop, mined out the wealth from the have-nots farmland, and then received their own reality check as the novel progressed to see how the children were doing 12 years later.

I understand the author wrote a number of sequels to this story as well as optioned a miniseries on the original book. Read this semi-autobiographical account and see why there are some things worth fighting for.

I mean that in the conceptual sense. There is no sex or violence in this book, it is instead violence of the heart, of neglect, of greed. But there is also the hope of learning, and the power of thought.