Stay Alive, My Son – Buch gebraucht kaufen

9747551268

(ISBN-13: 9789747551266)

deutliche Gebrauchsspuren

268

320 g

Taschenbuch

Englisch

STAYALIVE, MYSON

PIN YATHAY
On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge guerrillas filed into Phnom Penh, signaling the Start of a reign of terror which would devastate an ancient culture and cause the deaths of over two million Cambodians in just three years. Moving from camp to camp, Pin Yathay and his family became the ‘New People’—displaced city dwellers forced to live and work as peasants.

Astonishingly, Pin Yathay, a successful, highly educated Professional, survived that terrible time. But he and his wife were faced with a decision that no couple should ever have to make: whether to abandon their six-year-old child. In the era, Pin Yathay escaped the ‘killing fields’, but in his heart is etched the memory of the seventeen members of his family who lost their lives.

‘Brilliant. ... I could not put it down. . . . Stay Alive, My Son is a Story of miracles, timeless and timely.’

—Lynne Bundeseri, author of City of Angels


FORE WORD
In April 1975, the Cambodia I had known from childhood became a nightmare. The wheel of the Khmer Rouge revolution, Unding enemies everywhere, sought to crush the country, its people and its culture— individuals, families, society, knowledge, beliefs, and every positive emotion, even love itself.

In many respects, it succeeded. Cambodia became a nationwide experiment in totalitarian ideology. Hatred, fear and destruction ruled. Cities, possessions, money, education, and the arts alike were condemned. Millions suffered deportation, hard labour, starvation, and death. The country became one vast concentration camp.

In just two years, I lost everyone I loved—seventeen members of my family and uncounted friends—and everything that was dear to me. I am left only with memories.

In this book, I want those memories to live on. I want the world to know how my children, my wife, my parents, brothers, nephews and Cousins were all indiscriminately snuffed out. But, more, I want the world to see my suffering, and my family’s suffering as representative of what happened to millions. Through our suffering, I want you, my readers, to see how fme-sounding ideals of justice and equality can be perverted by fanatics to create brutal oppression and an equality of misery.

Such things have happened before. It is said that history is a mirror of the future. I pray that this is not necessarily so. I pray that this book may help prevent such horrors recurring. If it does, in one way at least my family and millions of other Cambodians will not have died in vain.

2000

BN34252