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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. Displaying the author's extraordinary gift for language, In the Shadow of the Banyan is testament to the transcendent power of narrative and a brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience.
About the author
Vaddey Ratner, geboren 1970 in Kambodscha, war fünf Jahre alt, als die Roten Khmer an die Macht kamen. 1982 gelangte sie als Flüchtlingskind ohne Englischkenntnisse in die USA, 1990 schloss sie die Highschool als Jahrgangsbeste ab und studierte Südostasiatische Geschichte und Kunst. Ihr Debütroman Im Schatten des Banyanbaums war unter anderem unter den Finalisten des PEN/Hemingway Foundation Awards. Vaddey Ratner lebt in Potomac, Maryland.
Summary
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. Displaying the author's extraordinary gift for language, In the Shadow of the Banyan is testament to the transcendent power of narrative and a brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience.
Report
'In the Shadow of the Banyan is one of the most extraordinary and beautiful acts of storytelling I have ever encountered. . . . utterly heartbreaking and impossibly beautiful. There are some moments in this story that are among the most powerful in literature' Chris Cleave, author of The Other Hand
'In the Shadow of the Banyan is a truly important literary event' Robert Olen Butler
'This stunning memorial expresses not just the terrors of the Khmer Rouge but also the beauty of what was lost. A hauntingly powerful novel imbued with the richness of old Cambodian lore, the devastation of monumental loss, and the spirit of survival' (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
