Gisteren gaat niet voorbij (Yesterday does not go by) is the title of a novel written in 1973 by the Dutch female author Aya Zikken. Against the background of a reunion gathering, the plot centres around two Dutch ladies who recollect their colonial childhood. They were in the Dutch East Indies (colonial Indonesia) during the early twentieth century. Zikken has reworked memories of the Dutch East Indies in numerous literary works, such as De atlasvlinder (1958), Raméh, verslag van een liefde (1968), Gisteren gaat niet voorbij (1973), Landing op Kalabahi (1996) and Indische jaren (2001). She has also written a large body of travel writing about Indonesia, for instance Eilanden van vroeger (1982), Drieluik Sumatra (1995) and Terug naar de atlasvlinder (1982). Since her repatriation to the Netherlands on the eve of the Second World War and the Indonesian struggle for independence, Aya Zikken has continuously returned to her autobiographical childhood experiences in colonial Indonesia through writing, travelling and writing about travel.

Seen in the post-imperial context of the second part of the twentieth century, Aya Zikken is by no means the only Dutch author who has returned to colonialism in her work. Although official historical records often reveal reluctance on the part of contemporary Dutch society to confront the ways in which colonialism has far outlived decolonisation, the desire to return to the colonial past is ever so present. In Britain also, it is striking that so many texts repeatedly return to scenes of colonialism, to produce a plethora of modes, motives, and meanings. The sheer range of these meanings can be glimpsed when we consider the various plots about the colonial past that are in circulation today.