When the plane touched the tarmac of Jakarta airport, I just started crying." It was 1987 and Alfred Birney was visiting his father’s birth country for the first time. "When I got off the plane, I saw people all around me looking just like my father: the way they talk, their gestures."

Although Alfred was born and raised in the Netherlands, his father’s heritage has haunted him all his life. "I officially started writing the book in 2012, but, i