Mona Lohanda


Mona Lohanda is an Indonesian historian, archivist and academic, as well as a former curator of the National Archives of Indonesia. She is a leading authority on the history of Batavia, as well as its Chinese-Indonesian community.

Early life

On November 4, 1947, Lohanda was born in Tangerang, Indonesia. Lohanda comes from a Benteng Chinese family.
Lohanda grew up in Tangerang, Indonesia.

Education

In 1975, Lohanda graduated with a B.A. degree from the Faculty of Literature, University of Indonesia. Lohanda was encouraged by the Indonesian historian Harsja Bachtiar to focus on Chinese-Indonesian history. In 1994, Lohanda earned a M.A. from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

Career

In 1972, Lohanda commenced work at the National Archives of Indonesia, where she later specialized on the Dutch East India Company period of colonial Indonesia, especially the period between 1683 and 1806. She compiled an index of VOC documents to facilitate the work of researchers and other academics. She retired from the Indonesian National Archives in 2012. She is still a lecturer at her alma mater, the University of Indonesia.
For her contribution to Indonesian historiography, Lohanda received the Nabil Award in 2010, the Kompas Cedekiawan Berdedikasi Award in 2012, and the Bakrie Award in 2016.

Major works