Terrifying Truths From the Khmer Rouge Era
For anyone who enjoyed Angelina Jolie's 2017 film First They Killed My Father, or enjoyed historical fiction such as Ruta Sepetys's Fountains of Silence or I Must Betray you, or the memoir-based book In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner, then here is another must read! Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime was as cruel and devastating as any; the country is still working to overcome the effects of that regime more than a half century later. This book inspired the documentary Ghost Mountain, co-directed by James Taing, the son of the man who survived Cambodia’s civil war and who helped write this book in the voice of his father. The first-person narrator draws the reader back to 1968 and conveys the increasingly intense fear after initial feelings of disbelief that the situation could really be deteriorating so quickly.
Sometimes it is difficult for younger generations to understand the depravity, the utter lack of humanity, in death camps and periods of genocide. Books such as this one are important to preserve history and, hopefully, renew some compassion for others.
One section of photographs helps readers to feel as if they truly know the family as they were in Cambodia and as they are now. The 2017 photos from refugee hiding places in dense Southeast Asian jungles will make one wonder how anyone could survive without enough food to eat and only ragged clothes on their backs and rubber sandals on their feet.
Even if readers hesitate because they have read other Cambodian memoirs or historical fiction, UNDER THE NAGA TRAIL is sure to hold your interest in addition to being a worthwhile addition to your knowledge of history.
Sometimes it is difficult for younger generations to understand the depravity, the utter lack of humanity, in death camps and periods of genocide. Books such as this one are important to preserve history and, hopefully, renew some compassion for others.
One section of photographs helps readers to feel as if they truly know the family as they were in Cambodia and as they are now. The 2017 photos from refugee hiding places in dense Southeast Asian jungles will make one wonder how anyone could survive without enough food to eat and only ragged clothes on their backs and rubber sandals on their feet.
Even if readers hesitate because they have read other Cambodian memoirs or historical fiction, UNDER THE NAGA TRAIL is sure to hold your interest in addition to being a worthwhile addition to your knowledge of history.