I will nominate
The Stones Cry out, by Molyda Szymusiak:
Quote:
|
In 1975, Molyda Szymusiak (her adoptive name), the daughter of a high Cambodian official, was twelve years old and leading a relatively peaceful life in Phnom Penh. Suddenly, on April 17, Khmer Rouge radicals seized the capital and drove all its inhabitants into the countryside. The chaos that followed has been widely publicized, most notably in the movie The Killing Fields. Murderous brutality coupled with raging famine caused the death of more than two million people, nearly a third of the population. This powerful memoir documents the horror Cambodians experienced in daily life.
|
The reason I nominate this book is that I was struck by this comment (by Stephen Haggard) in the London Review of Books:
Quote:
|
The stones cry out is a book of extraordinary power which resists the tools of analysis. It is the thing itself. The narrative can only outline again and again the palpable framework of her experiences – rice (planted, eaten or lacked), the family, the body and its illnesses – until these become the only structures in which the mind (and the book) can find units of signification. Pitted against these are their opposites: words (the propaganda of the daily ‘education sessions’), the commune which displaces the family, and the dismembered body – a frequent sight.
|
only problem is, I could not find an electronic version for it - so that is a problem.