Cambodian Archives - BookDragon

Talking Stories for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month [in Booklist Reader]

05 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cambodian, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Korean American, Lists, Pakistani American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American, Southeast Asian American

Short-story collections can be uneven, but readers will be consistently impressed by these extraordinary, resonant, and exhilarating debuts by a dozen diverse writers. Afterparties. By Anthony Veasna So. 2021. Ecco. So’s nine electrifying stories magnificently create an interconnected Cambodian American community. So’s death in December 2020 at just...

Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna, translated by Helge Dascher [in Booklist]

26 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cambodian, European, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW The U.S.’s April, 1975, withdrawal from Vietnam enabled the so-called Vietnam War to spread into Laos and Cambodia, where Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime stormed Phnom Penh and dispersed its inhabitants – mostly to brutal labor camps – eliminating 1.7 to 2 million Cambodians....

Five More to Go: Paul Yoon’s Run Me to Earth [in The Booklist Reader]

29 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Arab, Audio, British, Cambodian, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, European, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Lists, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Sri Lankan American, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American

Run Me to Earth by Paul Yoon Traversing countries and continents during a half-century, Paul Yoon’s (The Mountain, 2017) second novel unfolds decades of unrelenting loss and meaningless brutality, balanced – somehow – by exquisite kindness and unbreakable bonds. In war-torn Laos, a country brutalized by...

Three Flames by Alan Lightman [in Booklist]

22 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cambodian, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Novelist and physicist Alan Lightman (Einstein's Dreams) has traveled twice yearly since 2003 to Cambodia to work with his Harpswell Foundation which empowers women leaders in Cambodia and Southeast Asia. In his first novel in seven years, Lightman’s opening dedication directly spotlights Harpswell’s “strong and...

The Dead Eye and the Deep Blue Sea: A Graphic Memoir of Modern Slavery by Vannak Anan Prum, edited by Ben Pederick and Jocelyn Pederick [in Booklist]

05 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cambodian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

According to 2016 International Labor Organization data, “at least 40 million people are held in servitude.” Among these modern-day slaves was Vannak Anan Prum, a Cambodian man whose determination to finance his pregnant wife’s impending hospital stay sent him away from their village to find...

Celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month with 12 New Titles [in The Booklist Reader]

10 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British Asian, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Japanese American, Korean, Korean American, Lists, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian, South Asian American, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese American

While Columbus is credited with discovering the Americas, notable scholars and historians have argued that Chinese explorers traveled around the world in the early 15th century and created a surviving map that shows America on its route. Imagine if those ancient explorers had stayed. The history of Asians...

Help Young Readers Understand the Refugee Experience with Picture Books [in The Booklist Reader]

13 Apr, by SIBookDragon in African, Arab, Arab American, Australian, Bilingual, Biography, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Iraqi, Korean American, Latin American, Lists, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Syrian, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

This is the first in a two-part series of recommended books for youth about the refugee experience. For a list of middle grade and YA titles, click here. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), also known as the United Nations Refugee Agency,...

Music of the Ghosts by Vaddey Ratner [in Library Journal]

06 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Fiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

After nearly a quarter-century spent in Minnesota, Teera returns to her native Cambodia, fulfilling her aunt's dying wish that part of her ashes be delivered home. Having witnessed, decades earlier, the decimation of the rest of her family, Teera is now completely alone. She seeks the...

In a Rocket Made of Ice: Among the Children of Wat Opot by Gail Gutradt, with a foreword by Dr. Paul Farmer

12 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Cambodian, Jewish, Memoir, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Gail Gutradt is not a journalist. She is not a nurse or doctor, and actually has no training in the medical profession. She is not a mother. She is not a Buddhist. She speaks very little Khmer. For everything she is not, Gutradt is a...

Author Interview: Vaddey Ratner [in Bloom]

05 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Fiction, Memoir, Repost, Southeast Asian American

Almost two years after Vaddey Ratner made her New York Times bestselling debut with In the Shadow of the Banyan – her fictionalized account of her survival, as a young child, of the Khmer Rouge genocide that took most of her family along with some two million others...

Author Profile: Vaddey Ratner [in Bloom]

03 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Fiction, Memoir, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

"To transform suffering into art": Vaddey Ratner’s In the Shadow of the Banyan While the Vietnam War ended for the United States with the April 1975 military withdrawal, death and destruction continued, moving into neighboring Cambodia and Laos. With the evacuation of U.S. troops, the Communist...

In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner

10 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Fiction, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

Confession first: I took almost two years to finish this debut novel. Not until an interview deadline loomed (stay tuned!) could I force myself to keep turning the pages until I reached the end. Because I just couldn't let the book go. As wrenching and...

The Map of Lost Memories by Kim Fay

28 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Cambodian, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Southeast Asian

This has been my go-to article of late: "The One Thing White Writers Get Away With, But Authors of Color Don't" by Gracie Jin. In the few blurbs I've briefly perused online about Lost Memories, I haven't seen any mention of author Kim Fay's ethnic...

Dogs at the Perimeter by Madeleine Thien

13 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cambodian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

Above all else, Janie is a survivor. She escaped the horrifying deaths that took her entire family in her native Cambodia. She's outlived her adoptive Canadian mother who passed away just last year. She's built a fulfilling career as a scientist specializing in brain research. She's...

Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

22 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Fiction, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Young Adult Readers

I admit I had a few false starts before I finally settled into Patricia McCormick's latest, which was a 2012 National Book Award finalist for Young People's Literature. Based on the horrifying experiences of Cambodian activist/humanitarian Arn Chorn-Pond’s childhood survival during the brutal Khmer Rouge control...

The Rent Collector by Camron Wright

23 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Cambodian, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Southeast Asian

Allow me to begin with an intriguing tidbit and a cringe-inducing warning ...

Lulu in the Sky: A Daughter of Cambodia Finds Love, Healing, and Double Happiness by Loung Ung + Author Interview [in Bookslut]

04 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Young Adult Readers

When I recently met Loung Ung in person at one of her Washington, DC readings, we were the lone Asian women in the room. Yes, get ready with your "uh-oh." Within minutes, a random stranger asked if Ung and I were sisters. Surprisingly, I behaved...

The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine by Somaly Mam

12 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

Before you open Somaly Mam's astonishing memoir, you need to be prepared to bear witness to some of the most horrific acts a human being can commit against another, especially helpless young girls. Once you begin, the frank, unmitigated writing will not allow you to...

World and Town by Gish Jen

14 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

Hattie Kong's email inbox is full of desperate pleas from various relatives to please send back her parents' bones to the family plot in Qufu, China. Because her American missionary mother and her Confucius-descended Chinese father found their final rest in Iowa, the remaining Kong...

The Clay Marble by Minfong Ho

05 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Cambodian, Chinese American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Southeast Asian

Twelve-year-old Dara, her older brother, and their mother are the only ones left of their once-large family. Although the Vietnam War officially ended in 1975, neighboring Cambodia – decimated by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime – is still plagued with uncontrolled violence. Dara’s diminished family flees...

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