Cambodian American Archives

Booklist Backlist: Diverse Debut Story Collections [in Booklist]

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. The most autobiographical is “Human Development,” in...

The Donut Trap by Julie Tieu [in Booklist]

03 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Cambodian American, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Casting an Asian American narrator for Asian American characters created by an Asian American author initially seems to be a promising decision, but Taiwanese American Natalie Naudus, though pleasant overall for Julie Tieu’s debut, isn’t consistently convincing with the multiple Asian languages in play. One...

Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So [in Booklist]

02 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cambodian American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, Southeast Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW Nine electrifying stories comprise Anthony Veasna So’s debut, and while many were previously published, when read together their magnificence is enhanced as they create an interconnected Cambodian American community. Most autobiographical is “Human Development,” in which the narrator is also Anthony, a gay, Stanford-degreed...

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

10 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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 Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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 Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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...

Author Interview: Vaddey Ratner [in Bloom]

05 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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 Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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 Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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...

Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

22 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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 Language Inside by Holly Thompson

25 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Cambodian American, Fiction, Japanese, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Poetry, Southeast Asian American, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

This might be a spoiler of sorts: The advance galley is printed with a March 12, 2013 pub date, but when I went searching for an image of the book's cover to load here, online bookstores list a May date. Hmmm ...

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

04 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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 Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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 Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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...

Roots and Wings by Many Ly

15 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Cambodian, Cambodian American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Young Adult Readers

Born and raised in a small Pennsylvania town, the only connection 14-year-old Grace has to her Cambodian heritage are her mother and her grandmother. While these three generations of women clearly need and love one another, they are uncertain as to how to truly know each...

Alive in the Killing Fields: Surviving the Khmer Rouge Genocide by Nawuth Keat with Martha E. Kendall

22 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Cambodian, Cambodian American, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Young Adult Readers

'Collateral damage' is such a detached, sanitized phrase for the innocent people who pay the highest price for the tragic folly of war; and surely the youngest and the eldest suffer the greatest. "I want people to know the truth about what happened," Nawuth Keat told...

Dragon Chica by May-lee Chai

15 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cambodian American, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Southeast Asian American

May-lee Chai’s second novel is one of those titles to consider reading from the end, in this case with the "Acknowledgements," where the Chinese Caucasian hapa Chai recounts her long personal involvement with the Cambodian American community. At 15, writing for her Midwest hometown newspaper in the...

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung + Author Interview

10 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

For someone who has experienced hell, Loung Ung is a bright, welcoming voice filled with inviting laughter. She’s warm: “I just had dinner with my writing group last night. They’re my PenGals. I just love them! I don’t know what I would do without them.” She’s practical:...

A Song for Cambodia by Michelle Lord, illustrated by Shino Arihara [in Bloomsbury Review]

01 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Children/Picture Books, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

song-for-cambodia Arn Chorn-Pond was just 8 years old when he was torn from his family in 1975 as the Khmer Rouge invaded Cambodia. He survives years of unimaginable atrocities with only rare moments of music to soothe...

Home Is East by Many Ly [in AsianWeek]

08 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Cambodian American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Young Adult Readers

Home Is East After her mother suddenly deserts the family, Amy and her father are left alone to create a new life across the country in California. A heartbreaking coming-of-age tale about growing up Cambodian...

BookDragon Cambodian American