Molly Bondan

Photograph of Molly Warner and Mohammed Bondan taken in Indonesia, some years after their marriage. From In Love with a Nation: Molly Bondan and Indonesia: her own story in her own words, edited by Joan Hardjono and Charles Warner, 1995.

Photo: From In Love with a Nation: Molly Bondan and Indonesia: her own story in her own words.

Molly Bondan (nee Warner) was an Australian secretary and author who met and married Mohammad Bondan in Brisbane in 1946, while campaigning with other Australians in support of the Indonesian independence movement. 

In 1947 Molly and Mohammad Bondan flew to Yogyakarta to support the new republic.

Molly Bondan worked for the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jakarta, working on many of President Sukarno’s English speeches from 1961 to 1965. She was also involved in organising the Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung in 1955. 

Her books In Love With a Nation and Spanning a Revolution document a transformational period in Indonesia’s history in which she was a participant and witness.