French Army veteran and former business consultant Jean Rocher has been to many countries, but Indonesia has attracted his full attention and has inspired him to become a writer.

Rocher said his periods of stay in Indonesia had impressed him, making him want to share what he knew about Indonesia with his compatriots through his writings.

'€œI like this country and I realized that not many French people know that Indonesia is not just Bali and has more places to discover, even Jakarta. I wanted them to know more about it, so I started writing,'€ Rocher told The Jakarta Post.

He was recently in Jakarta to promote the French version of Perang Napoleon di Jawa 1811: Kekalahan Memalukan Gubernur Jenderal Janssens (Napoleonic War in Java 1811: The Embarrassing Defeat of Governor General Janssens) to the French community in the city.

Perang Napoleon was first released in the Indonesian language in 2011.

Before writing books, Rocher wrote articles about interesting places in, among others, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Malang and Sulawesi for magazines in France.

Rocher's first connection with Indonesia dated back to 1990 when he attended a military course with the Indonesian Army Staff and Command School (Seskoad) in the West Java capital of Bandung.

He then served as a military attaché at the French Embassy in Jakarta from 1993 until 1997. During this period, he got the chance to travel to some places across the archipelago, such as Ambon, Ternate and Sabang, to prepare for the French navy'€™s visits to Indonesia.

'€œI also had time to study more about Indonesia; the politics, the defense sector of course, the people and the cultures. Despite some inconveniences, I still find this country interesting,'€ he said.

In 1999, he retired from the Army after serving for 29 years, and began running a consultancy business for French firms in Indonesia and some other countries.

While running the business, he decided to take his writing skills to another level by writing books.

Rocher wrote in French, but then had the works translated into Indonesian so they could be sold in Indonesia, too.

'€œI've always liked reading, then I wanted to try to make my own book. It was quite difficult in the beginning, but slowly I got used to it,'€ the 65-year-old said.

In 2002, he published his first book, Lelehan Musim Api (The Melting in the Fire Season), about a family in Bali during the 1998 political upheaval period.

'€œAll of the difficulties during the making disappeared when I saw a girl in Balikpapan buying my first book. That made me want to write again,'€ Rocher said, adding that the book was also published in French.

Jean published his second book in 2009, entitled Keping Rahasia Terakhir (The Last Piece of Secret), a novel about espionage.

But his widely known work was his third book, Perang Napoleon.

Rocher said he found out about the big battle between the French-Dutch allies against the British in Java on his first visit to Indonesia, and could not stop thinking about it.

He said that writing Perang Napoleon was not as easy as his previous books, since there were hardly any references about the Napoleonic battle in Java, either in Indonesia or in France.  

'€œI could find a lot of books of about the battle but most of them are from the British point of view, and only a few that wrote about France's defeat,'€ he said.

Apart from reading books, Rocher said he had also visited an archive center in France to learn more about the generals, including Jan Willem Janssens who served as the governor-general during the war, and consulted with historians.

Rocher said that unlike in Indonesia, it was quite hard for him to find a French publisher that wanted to take his Napoleon story.

'€œI was told to send the draft to a big publisher that accepts 60 drafts a day but only publishes two or three books a year. It didn't work out well for me,'€ said Rocher, who admires British espionage novelist John
le Carré.

Rocher did not give up, and finally got a deal with a smaller publisher that wanted to print his work but he had to sell the books by himself.  

'€œI did all this because there is only a few books about the Napoleonic War in Java in French, so I wanted to contribute one,'€ he said.

His fourth book, Sejarah Kecil Indonesia-Prancis 1800-2000 (Small History of Indonesia-France 1800-2000), was then released in 2014 by Buku Kompas, and he is now working on his latest book about Herman Willem Daendels.

Back home, he dedicates most of his time to writing.

But when Rocher '€” who dreams of doing wingsuit flying '€” is not behind his desk, he spends his time gardening in his house in a suburb of Paris.

"As a retiree, writing is a very good activity that can keep you sharp. You can escape from everyday life, you can go in the field, doing research and discovering history,'€ the father of three said.

Photos courtesy of Jean Rocher