The true story of a prince from Bali, whose fascinating life was shaped by uncommon events and exotic places. Born in 1919, Prince Made Djelantik witnessed pivotal moments of history: the twilight of a feudal age, the Second World War in Nazi-occupied Holland, Indonesia's long battle for independence from four hundred years of Dutch colonial rule, and finally, the great changes provoked on his island by unbridled development. Driven by an early passion for medicine, the prince set sail for Europe on the eve of WWII to study at the University of Amsterdam. His calling then took him to far-flung corners of the planet, where he encountered everything from a pirate ambush in the South China Sea and a night attack by a famished army of rats, to a deadly volcanic eruption and his arrest by Saddam Hussein's secret police. When he returned to Bali in the mid-1970s, his public identity as a doctor took precedence over his royal lineage and he was known simply as "Dr. Djelantik" on the island. The doctor implemented the successful campaign which finally eradicated malaria from Bali and established the island's first hospital. Author Idanna Pucci's evocative narrative of this unusual life is told in short story form, making The World Odyssey of a Balinese Prince an easy read for anyone who finds themselves dreaming of distant places. More than 40 of Dr. Djelantik's own watercolors—done when he was in his 80s—help to illustrate his adventures in vivid detail.
Author
Since leaving her ancestral home in Florence, Italy, Idanna Pucci pursued her interest in diverse cultures through far-flung journeys. Her first stop was New York, where she worked for her uncle, fashion designer Emilio Pucci, who introduced her to Indonesian iconography through his work inspired by Bali and Java. She soon moved to Bali, where she pursued her interest in myth and the oral tradition. . Various assignments for Asia Magazine enabled her to travel throughout South East Asia and Japan, and across the Soviet Union on the last steam engine of the Trans-Siberian railway. During her Comparative Literature studies at Columbia University, she wrote "The Epic of Life," a classic on Balinese culture. She has produced various documentaries: “Eugenia of Patagonia” on the life of her aunt who founded a town at the end of the world, and served as its legendary mayor for thirty years; “Black Africa White Marble”, inspired by her book "Brazza in Congo: A Life and Legacy" (Umbrage, 2009) that sheds light on Western Africa’s colonial past and its troubled present; and more recently “Talk Radio Tehran” about defiant women in Iran who fulfill their aspirations in spite of the gender-apartheid system that dominates their lives. She is also the author of "The Lady of Sing: an American Countess, an Italian Immigrant, and their Epic Battle for Justice in New York’s Gilded Age" (New Edition, Simon & Schuster, NY, 2020 - with the preface by Edgar Morin). It’s the story of her American great-grandmother who shook New York’s Gilded Age in 1895 with the first campaign against the death penalty to save the first woman sentenced to the electric chair, a twenty year old Italian immigrant. In "The World Odyssey of a Balinese Prince" (Tuttle Publishing, VT 2020) a collection of true stories between East and West with a foreword by Francesco Clemente, she narrates the extraordinary life of a cultural visionary and medical doctor whose daring adventures transcend borders. Idanna serves as an ambassador of Religions for Peace, the world’s largest interfaith organization. She speaks Italian, English, French, and reasonable Bahasa Indonesia. She resides with her husband between Florence and New York.
