{"id":22835,"date":"2014-03-03T09:22:36","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T13:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=22835"},"modified":"2015-08-17T09:54:27","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T13:54:27","slug":"author-profile-vaddey-ratner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author-profile-vaddey-ratner\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Profile: Vaddey Ratner [in Bloom]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/04\/VaddeyRatner.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-25030\" alt=\"Vaddey Ratner\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/04\/VaddeyRatner-300x300.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>&#8220;To transform suffering into art&#8221;: Vaddey Ratner\u2019s <em>In the Shadow of the Banyan<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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 Khmer Rouge stormed into Cambodia\u2019s capital (and largest city) Phnom Penh and dispersed its inhabitants to remote areas. In an attempt to create a more equitable society, the Khmer Rouge destroyed the majority of those who were perceived to have power, particularly the wealthy and educated. To destabilize any remaining social structures, they fractured family units. Those who managed to survive were sent to labor camps where many would die of starvation, disease, torture, and execution. Over the next four years, Pol Pot and his heinous regime claimed almost two million lives \u2013\u00a0a quarter of Cambodia\u2019s then-population.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vaddeyratner.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Vaddey Ratner<\/a> and her mother survived. No one else in their immediately family lived. Ratner was just five in 1975. Six years later, in 1981, mother and daughter arrived in the U.S. as refugees. Just over three decades later, in August 2012, Vaddey would publish <a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/2014\/02\/10\/in-the-shadow-of-the-banyan-by-vaddey-ratner\/\"><em>In the Shadow of the Banyan<\/em><\/a>, her fictionalized account of her young life, her missing family, and how she miraculously stayed alive while too many others did not.<\/p>\n<p>In the transcript of a speech that Ratner\u2019s Simon &amp; Schuster editor, Trish Todd, gave at BEA\u2019s 2012 \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OvEepbsBR30\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Editors Buzz Panel<\/a>\u201d [to watch fast forward to 28:36 for Todd\/<em>Banyan<\/em>], she confesses to initially believing that Banyan \u201cwas not a natural fit for me\u201d when Ratner\u2019s agent first pitched Todd the novel. Intending to \u201chonor [the agent\u2019s] submission with a nice rejection and begin my vacation,\u201d Todd \u2013\u00a0a 30-year veteran of publishing\u00a0\u2013\u00a0finished the manuscript without pause (barely moving!) and realized that she \u201chad just read what could be the most important book [she] would ever publish.\u201d She cancelled her vacation and planned how to win the \u201cvery big auction\u201d to buy this first novel of a new, untested writer. The rest, as they say\u2026<\/p>\n<p>The laudatory responses quickly followed. Readers made Banyan a <em>New York Times<\/em> bestseller. Critics agreed. Banyan was a <em>New York Times<\/em> Book Review Editor\u2019s Choice and appeared on eight 2012 best books lists, including <em>Christian Science Monitor<\/em> and <em>Kirkus Reviews<\/em>. The populist bibles <em>O <\/em>Magazine and <em>People<\/em> raved and recommended. The highbrows too applauded and nominated, naming it a 2013 PEN\/Hemingway finalist, as well as a finalist for the 2013 Book of the Year Indies Choice Award. Ratner made the media rounds: NPR\u2019s \u201cMorning Edition,\u201d <em>USA Today<\/em>, and <em>The Washington Post<\/em>, to name a few. She spoke around the world, at the PEN\/Faulkner gala, the United Nations Association, the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, and more.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike Todd, I took over two years to finally reach the last page of <em>Banyan<\/em>. Not even the prospect of meeting Ratner in livetime, thanks to a mutual writer friend who insisted I join them for dinner, could get me to finish reading <em>Banyan<\/em>! Thankfully, the mutual friend\u2019s new book took precedence as dinner conservation. Not until this <em>Bloom<\/em> deadline loomed could I force myself to actually reach book\u2019s end. Why the frozen hesitation? Because I simply couldn\u2019t let the book go: holding on to the promise of unread chapters was more comforting than racing to the conclusion. I needed only a fraction of the 300 pages to realize that as wrenching and terrifying as the story is, <em>Banyan<\/em> would surely be one of the most heart-stoppingly gorgeous titles I would read in years. I wasn\u2019t wrong. [<a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/03\/2014-03-03-bloom-vaddey-ratner-feature1.pdf\">&#8230; click here for more<\/a>]\n<p><strong>Author profile<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/bloom-site.com\/2014\/03\/03\/to-transform-suffering-into-art-vaddey-ratners-in-the-shadow-of-the-banyan\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">&#8220;&#8216;To transform suffering into art&#8217;: Vaddey Ratner&#8217;s In the Shadow of the Banyan,&#8221; <em>Bloom<\/em>, March 3, 2014<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;To transform suffering into art&#8221;: Vaddey Ratner\u2019s 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&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,797,325,6,107,6535,136,137],"tags":[182,6608,58,75,10,24,51,25,1001,129,39,41,1002,45],"class_list":["post-22835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-author-interview-profile","category-cambodian","category-cambodian-american","category-fiction","category-memoir","category-repost","category-southeast-asian","category-southeast-asian-american","tag-bloom","tag-bookdragon","tag-coming-of-age","tag-death","tag-family","tag-historical","tag-identity","tag-immigration","tag-in-the-shadow-of-the-banyan","tag-mother-daughter-relationship","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-royalty","tag-vaddey-ratner","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Author Profile: Vaddey Ratner [in Bloom] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author-profile-vaddey-ratner\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Author Profile: Vaddey Ratner [in Bloom] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;To transform suffering into art&#8221;: Vaddey Ratner\u2019s 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...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author-profile-vaddey-ratner\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-03-03T13:22:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-17T13:54:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/04\/VaddeyRatner.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2760\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2761\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Author Profile: Vaddey Ratner [in Bloom] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author-profile-vaddey-ratner\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Author Profile: Vaddey Ratner [in Bloom] - BookDragon","og_description":"&#8220;To transform suffering into art&#8221;: Vaddey Ratner\u2019s 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. 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