#vaddey ratner

[caribeandthebooks]

Caribe's Read Around The World TBR - Part 3

Books set in Asian countries <3

[whilereadingandwalking]

In the Shadow of the Banyan is an autobiographical novel by Vaddey Ratner about her experience as a survivor of the Cambodian genocide that began in 1975. Protagonist Raami is seven when her and her family, royals living in Phnom Penh, are forcibly evacuated from their home and enter a whirlwind of imposed chaos and constant movement. The Khmer Rouge try to create a revolution of collective and classless identity, but their methods are brutal, including the murder of intellectuals and the religious and separation of families, and mismanagement led to widespread starvation and hunger. 

For such a devastating novel, Ratner bestows it with rich beauty. Cambodia is a beautiful place, and Ratner paints rich landscapes of rice paddies, of soft and aromatic blooms, of the rushing waters of the Mekong. Raami finds her capability for survival in the poems and stories her father gives her, in the sad beauty behind her mother's eyes, and in the outlooks they both instilled in her. The myths and fables of Cambodia, the tale of the Buddha, intertwine with their circumstances. It is a painful novel, hard and cruel, a book about suffering, grief, and loss, but has its roots in a fierce hope.

[can-i-quote-you-on-that]

We are all beggars, my father said.  It doesn't matter what we wear - rags, a saffron robe, or silk.  We each ask the same of life.

In The Shadow Of The Banyan (Vaddey Ratner)

[diaryoftruequotes]

Life is like that. Everything is connected, and sometimes we, like little fishes, are swept up in these big and powerful currents. Carried far from home...

Vaddey Ratner

[can-i-quote-you-on-that]

I thought maybe we mourned not only the dead but also the living.  We felt their absence before we knew for sure they were gone.

In The Shadow Of The Banyan (Vaddey Ratner)

[can-i-quote-you-on-that]

And since then, I'd learned to see things not as they were, but for what they meant - that even when it rained, the sun could still shine, and the sky might offer something infinitely more beautiful than white clouds and blue expanse, that colors could burst forth in the most unexpected moment.

In The Shadow Of The Banyan (Vaddey Ratner)

[can-i-quote-you-on-that]

'Often, I lose myself in the constellations of my own ideas, forever searching for points of illumination.  But no matter where I look, I find you, shining and bright, offering me whatever it is I seek.  You are my one single star.  My sun, my moon, my guide and direction.  I know as long as I have you, I'll never lose my way.  Even if I cannot touch you, I know I will see you, feel you, from anywhere.  If I need you, I know where to find you.'  He brought her hand to his heart.  'Here - you are always here.'

In The Shadow Of The Banyan (Vaddey Ratner)

[can-i-quote-you-on-that]

'When I thought you couldn't walk, I wanted to make sure you could fly.'  His voice was calm, soothing, as if it were just another evening, another conversation.  'I told you stories to give you wings, Raami, so that you would never be trapped by anything - your name, your title, the limits of your body, this world's suffering.'

In The Shadow Of The Banyan (Vaddey Ratner)