In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
Over a thousand years ago under the Khmer Empire, the Angkor Wat Temple was built in Cambodia. Today this Asian landmark is an international tourist mecca and a Unesco World Heritage Site.
This week, Kristin Gelineau of Associated Press reported some exciting news about Angkor Wat: the Australian Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that with the aid of airborne laser technology, a large urban complex around the temple has been found beneath the jungle.
In 1975, a group of socialist revolutionaries called the Khmer Rouge overthrew the monarchy and took over the country. Vaddey Ratner was an eye witness to this revolution and her first novel is based on the Cambodian Revolution.
Though this author writes from a child's point of view without maintaining the simple vocabulary of the child's voice, she is very good with description. Her portrayal of the history of her birth country is graphic and unforgettable.
Five-year-old Raami dreams of the death of the gardener before it happens. Later, as a refugee, when she sees the rickety canoe that will take her family and their bundles of simple possessions down the river, she "swallows and feels the whole river rushing down [her] throat."
Raami has had polio, and she wears a leg brace that she has always hated. A young revolutionary soldier forces her father to take it off her and throw it in the river. "The Organization will cure her," he says. But Raami suddenly wants to have the hated brace back.
One of the strange ironies of this story of loss concerns her father's socialist poetry: when the communists take over, this is one of the many things he must leave behind.
Since this debut novel was published last year, it has been nominated for many prizes including New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice and Kirkus Review Best Fiction of 2012.
This year it's a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway prize and an Indies Choice.