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Between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge communist-ruled Cambodia and drove its population onto rural communes where millions perished from murder and malnutrition. Countless well-researched books have been written on the subject. The Lost Executioner stands out for the commitment of its author. For years, photographer Nic Dunlop carried a photograph of Comrade Duch in his pocket as he traveled through post-war Cambodia, trying to understand the horrors inflicted on its population until he came face to face to face with the head of the Khmer Rouge secret police who was responsible for some 20.000 deaths. The Lost Executioner not only dissects the horror of recent Cambodian politics but also asks pertinent questions about the role of journalists in conflict zones.

Cambodia, Joel Brinkley writes, is the most dangerous country in the world. The first one falls in love with it, then it breaks one’s heart. Cambodia’s Curse is a book of two tales. Brinkley’s retelling of the war years is a little revisionist but the chapters on the post-war reconstruction, the dirty politics, the lack of opportunities for ordinary people, and the venality of the government that remains in place to this day rightly and masterfully lay the blame for countless missed opportunities to create a more equitable society both into the hands of the international community’s attempts to create ‘democracy’ and Hun Sen’s regime.

Books on Cambodia predominantly cover the communist revolution and genocide. Carrying Cambodia is a different proposition, a photo book that depicts the resourcefulness of ordinary Cambodians in the post-war era. The two authors/photographers spent considerable time on the back of motorbikes cruising the highways and by-ways of Cambodia to capture the incredible efforts its people have to make to get from A to B. Images of trucks, bikes, tuk-tuks, and cyclos unbelievably overloaded with people and produce give a candid impression of the daily struggle of citizens living in unjust, broken societies, but also celebrates a resurging Khmer spirit in the face of incredible challenges.

Ryman is known mainly as a science fiction and fantasy writer, and there’s a hint of that here, as the story moves back and forth between the twelfth century, the heyday of the Khmer Empire, and present-day, post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia. My own writing has tried to depict life in the ancient days, so I of course wanted to see how someone else would do it. The answer is superbly. Ryman gives us an epic-scale life story of the great king Jayavarman VII, about whom next to nothing is known on a personal level. But now there’s plenty, or so it can seem, because it’s impossible not to buy into this portrait: the king’s inner motivations, his empathy for ordinary people in his realm, his accomplishments that are both military and spiritual. And Ryman’s depiction of a modern society recovering from genocide rings horribly true, peopled by an aging French archaeologist,… show more.

I loved Vaddey Ratner’s debut novel, which offers another heart-wrenching child’s-eye view of life under the Khmer Rouge. Raami, her seven-year-old protagonist, is marched out of Phnom Penh in April 1975 with her family, who is of royal stock and, therefore, in extreme peril.

Raami details the horror and cruelty she endures as the regime becomes ever more paranoid and murderous. She fights to retain vestiges of her earlier self, recalling her favorite myths and tales from Cambodian folklore—in this, I saw a parallel with how Chantha turns to her food memories and recipes to remember who she was before the disasters began. Ratner, a Khmer Rouge survivor, writes beautifully of endurance, survival, and hope amidst horror, and like Ung, she’s an important voice for Cambodian survivors, the conscience of a generation. 

To understand Cambodia, I needed to taste its flavors. Nhum (which means “eat” in Khmer) was a great way for me to learn more about Khmer cuisine between trips to Cambodia. Nhum is a beautifully designed cookbook—and it’s a historical document meant to help preserve Cambodian foodways, which were nearly wiped out by the Khmer Rouge’s campaign of murder, starvation, and cultural erasure.

Rotanak—known as “Chef Nak” to her fans—has become a celebrity in Cambodia, with two Cambodian cookbooks, a homestay/cooking lesson business in Phnom Penh, and a social media video series featuring her traveling the countryside, asking elders to share their recipes. The “Ingredients” section alone is a masterclass on what you’ll find in Cambodian gardens, pantries, and kitchens and how and why to use it.

Chantha and I met and cooked with Chef Nak a few years ago, and we admire her work preserving traditional recipes. I hope… show more.

Etcheson has spent decades working for justice for survivors of the Khmer Rouge massacres of the 1970s. He tells the inside story of the diplomatic, legal, political, and social maneuvering behind the negotiation, setup, and operation of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia. That court, plagued by political interference, only managed to try three defendants, but its legacy went beyond the actual trials, sometimes in surprising ways. The book is engaging and has fascinating details on behind-the-scenes discussions.  

Loung Ung’s harrowing memoir was the first of many Khmer Rouge survivor accounts I read, and it’s perhaps the most widely read KR memoir; it’s also been adapted by Angelina Jolie and Netflix into a stunning feature film.

Ung’s writing is simple and lyrical, and she captures her own childhood voice to heartbreaking effect as she recalls her family’s destruction at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, who seized power when she was five years old.

Ung has an astonishing ability to find humanity and hope amidst the worst horrors imaginable—a trait that Chantha shares and expresses in her sumptuous cooking, her nonprofit work with rural Cambodian women, and her dogged pursuit of a beautiful life. 

Elizabeth Becker’s sweeping account of Pol Pot’s genocidal regime was essential reading for me as I struggled to understand what befell Cambodia in the 1970s-90s. A foreign correspondent in Cambodia starting in 1973, Becker witnessed some of Cambodia’s disasters firsthand and interviewed scores of survivors and perpetrators, including Pol Pot himself, at great personal risk.

This book adds vital context from the French colonial era, Pol Pot’s political education in Paris, U.S. bombing campaigns, and Lon Nol’s 1970 coup before “Pol Pot Time” (as Cambodians call the Khmer Rouge era) to the aftermath: Vietnam’s invasion and occupation, refugee camps and refugee policy in the West, the peace process, and Cambodia’s first postwar elections. I turned to Becker’s book again and again to put Chantha’s memories into historical context and (occasionally) inform our explanatory footnotes.

Haing Ngor, is still only one of three Asian actors to win an Oscar, received in 1985 for Best Supporting Actor in his portrayal of journalist Dith Pran for the film, The Killing Fields. Remarkably Haing Ngor himself was a survivor of the genocide in Cambodia, a trained Doctor at the time before the Khmer Rouge enacted their devastating atrocities upon the country. He would only survive torture by pretending to be an uneducated taxi driver. This book will leave you in awe and inspired, as it did for me, of Haing Ngor’s life. He resettles in America, doing jobs cleaning latrines to suddenly finding himself becoming Hollywood famous overnight. He was an important voice in the advocacy of human rights, until he, unfortunately, passed away in 1996.