In the early 1880s, the descendants of Chinese immigrants (called Peranakan in Malay) achieved and printed a large number of Malay translations of Chinese novel in the Dutch Indies. We chose to study two translations published simultaneously during the years 1910-1913 when the Chinese community of Insular Southeast Asia was trying to rethink its cultural and political identity from the literary, philological, historical and sociological angles. The research is about two complete translations of the Sanguo yanyi 三国演义, the most remarkable Chinese historical novels that depict the period of Three Kingdoms. Through textual analysis, we found that although the translators of two Sam Kok (abbreviated title commonly used in Indonesia to refer to the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”) had some rudimentary Chinese education and knowledge of the language Malay used in the urban areas of Java, they exhibited a great willingness to express all the literary and cultural values of the novel Sanguo yanyi. In order to examine the impact of Sam Kok on the Chinese community, we have put them in their historical context and compare them with other Malay translations published during 1880-1910. Consequently, we are able to assert that, through those translations, especially those of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the peranakan have acquired some understanding of the history and culture of their ancestral country, which also constituted their past. ; Au début des années 1880, un grand nombre de traductions malaises de romans chinois émanant de descendants de Chinois (appelés en malais peranakan) parurent aux Indes néerlandaises sous la forme d’ouvrages imprimés. Nous avons choisi d’en étudier deux, parues simultanément pendant les années 1910-1913, à un moment où la communauté chinoise d’Insulinde essayait de repenser son identité culturelle et politique, sous les angles littéraire, philologique, historique et sociologique. Il s’agit de deux traductions complètes du Sanguo yanyi 三国演义, le plus remarquable des romans historiques chinois ...