In the shadow of the banyan
By: Vaddey Ratner
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 322
ISBN-13: 9781451657708; 9781451657715; 9781451657722
Subjects: Fiction; Refugees; History
Description: Told from the tender perspective of a young girl who comes of age amid the Cambodian killing fields, this novel is based on the author's personal story. For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. Soon the family's world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus. Over the next four years, as she endures the deaths of family members, starvation, and brutal forced labor, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of childhood, the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival.