For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours, bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Soon the family’s world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus. Over the next four years, as the Khmer Rouge attempts to strip the population of every shred of individual identity, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of her childhood— the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival. Displaying the author’s extraordinary gift for language, In the Shadow of the Banyan is a brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience.
In the Shadow of the Banyan: A Novel
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Book Description
You are about to read an extraordinary story. It will take you to the very depths of despair and show you unspeakable horrors. It will reveal a gorgeously rich culture struggling to survive through a furtive bow, a hidden ankle bracelet, fragments of remembered poetry. It will ensure that the world never forgets the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, when an estimated two million people lost their lives. It will give you hope, and it will confirm the power of storytelling to lift us up and help us not only survive but transcend suffering, cruelty, and loss.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Ratner's remarkable debut novel transforms her childhood experiences into the finest of literary fiction . . . A powerful testament to the tenacity of love and family in the face of unspeakable inhumanity."--Indie Next List Great Reads
“Lyrical . . . It’s Raami’s mother who will stay in your heart . . . Somehow she retains the will to survive and the strength to help others, fiercely telling her daughter, ‘Remember who you are.’” (People, four stars)
“How is it that so much of this bleak novel is full of beauty, even joy? . . . What is remarkable, and honorable, here is the absence of anger, and the capacity—seemingly infinite—for empathy.” (New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice))
“The horrors committed by Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, as experienced by one extremely resilient girl. A brutal novel, lyrically told.” (O, The Oprah Magazine)
“Unputdownable.” (Better Homes and Gardens)
“Lyrical . . . a love story to her homeland and an unflinching account of innocents caught in the crossfire of fanaticism.” (Parade)
“A tale of perseverance, hope and the drive toward life.” (The Washington Post)
“Humanity . . . shines through in her storytelling.” (The Wall Street Journal)
“For all the atrocities witnessed and hardships experienced, Ratner’s story is filled to an even larger extent with opportunism and beauty. Ratner’s gift is her exquisite descriptions of the careful details of daily life . . . Ratner describes her desire to memorialize the loved ones she lost with an enduring work of art. She has done just that; hers is a beautiful tale with considerable poetry and restraint. In the Shadow of the Banyan is an important novel, written by a survivor with unexpected grace and eloquence.” (Audrey Magazine)
“The powerful story of how even the most brutal regime lacked the power of a father’s love for his daughter.” (The Daily Beast)
“Gorgeous . . . Ratner bears witness to the unyielding human spirit.” (Washingtonian)
“Lyrical . . . It’s Raami’s mother who will stay in your heart . . . Somehow she retains the will to survive and the strength to help others, fiercely telling her daughter, ‘Remember who you are.’” (People, four stars)
“How is it that so much of this bleak novel is full of beauty, even joy? . . . What is remarkable, and honorable, here is the absence of anger, and the capacity—seemingly infinite—for empathy.” (New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice))
“The horrors committed by Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, as experienced by one extremely resilient girl. A brutal novel, lyrically told.” (O, The Oprah Magazine)
“Unputdownable.” (Better Homes and Gardens)
“Lyrical . . . a love story to her homeland and an unflinching account of innocents caught in the crossfire of fanaticism.” (Parade)
“A tale of perseverance, hope and the drive toward life.” (The Washington Post)
“Humanity . . . shines through in her storytelling.” (The Wall Street Journal)
“For all the atrocities witnessed and hardships experienced, Ratner’s story is filled to an even larger extent with opportunism and beauty. Ratner’s gift is her exquisite descriptions of the careful details of daily life . . . Ratner describes her desire to memorialize the loved ones she lost with an enduring work of art. She has done just that; hers is a beautiful tale with considerable poetry and restraint. In the Shadow of the Banyan is an important novel, written by a survivor with unexpected grace and eloquence.” (Audrey Magazine)
“The powerful story of how even the most brutal regime lacked the power of a father’s love for his daughter.” (The Daily Beast)
“Gorgeous . . . Ratner bears witness to the unyielding human spirit.” (Washingtonian)
About the Author
Vaddey Ratner was five years old when the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975. In 1981 she arrived in the United States as a refugee not knowing English and ultimately went on to graduate summa cum laude from Cornell University. She lives in Potomac, Maryland.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
146 of 152 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exquisite, evocative, heart-wrenching tale of life under the Khmer Rouge (and the most touching book I've read in a long time)
July 8, 2012
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I first learned of this book when I read the first chapter in a Simon & Schuster 2012 releases preview. I knew then I needed to read the rest of the book as soon as I could. I now have, and it is an amazing book.
It is amazing that this book was even written. The author was five when the Khmer Rouge overran Cambodia. (Which is the story, of course.) While a million or more died, including many of her relatives, she survived. She made it to America at eleven, not knowing English. But she graduated summa cum laude from Cornell. Amazing, indeed, that a mind of this quality survived to bear witness to the horror.
Even more amazing is how well she has learned to write in an adopted language. She puts many native writers to shame. In fact, she brings to mind Conrad as a non-native writer who has made English her own. And comparisons to Conrad I do not make frivolously.
While beautifully, even gloriously, written, I can't say this book is easy to read. Some parts soar, but other parts describe horrible, shocking, conditions under the Khmer Rouge. The writing is wonderful, but the truth is terrible. I cried many times reading this book.
A native English writer myself, I am almost at a loss for words in describing this book. The author captures her love for her father and his learning, her pain at his loss, and the horrors of her survival under the Khmer Rouge, in terms so wonderful that I feel inadequate to the task of summarizing them. I envy her prose. It is glorious.
Much recent American fiction follows the line of: I didn't get what I wanted, so life is unfair, boo hoo. If you want to understand true human misery and struggle, it is revealed in this book.
It is amazing that this book was even written. The author was five when the Khmer Rouge overran Cambodia. (Which is the story, of course.) While a million or more died, including many of her relatives, she survived. She made it to America at eleven, not knowing English. But she graduated summa cum laude from Cornell. Amazing, indeed, that a mind of this quality survived to bear witness to the horror.
Even more amazing is how well she has learned to write in an adopted language. She puts many native writers to shame. In fact, she brings to mind Conrad as a non-native writer who has made English her own. And comparisons to Conrad I do not make frivolously.
While beautifully, even gloriously, written, I can't say this book is easy to read. Some parts soar, but other parts describe horrible, shocking, conditions under the Khmer Rouge. The writing is wonderful, but the truth is terrible. I cried many times reading this book.
A native English writer myself, I am almost at a loss for words in describing this book. The author captures her love for her father and his learning, her pain at his loss, and the horrors of her survival under the Khmer Rouge, in terms so wonderful that I feel inadequate to the task of summarizing them. I envy her prose. It is glorious.
Much recent American fiction follows the line of: I didn't get what I wanted, so life is unfair, boo hoo. If you want to understand true human misery and struggle, it is revealed in this book.
113 of 122 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
In the Shadow of the Banyan is a fictionalized work that parallels author Vaddey Ratner's personal history: a (minor) royal family of privilege and education is driven from Phnom Penh during the Khmer Rouge revolution. Told from the perspective of seven-year-old Raami, the novel follows her family through years of toil and labor in the countryside of Cambodia, through monsoons, sickness, and famine. Banyan is suffused with myth and poetry, both of which play a large role in Raami's family. The storytelling is lyrical and rich and it transports the reader to the jungles, riverbanks and rice paddies of Cambodia. Ratner does an amazing job of illustrating both the horror of the genocide and the power of hope.
As beautifully written as the book is, I didn't love it. My personal preference is for stories that are driven by plot or dialog. This book is much more introspective and descriptive. I found myself skipping paragraphs, too anxious to find out what would happen next. (For comparative purposes: I had the same problem with Snow Falling on Cedars.)
Final verdict: Beautiful, but not the right book for me. I don't have the right reading temperament for Ratner's slow and deliberate style.
As beautifully written as the book is, I didn't love it. My personal preference is for stories that are driven by plot or dialog. This book is much more introspective and descriptive. I found myself skipping paragraphs, too anxious to find out what would happen next. (For comparative purposes: I had the same problem with Snow Falling on Cedars.)
Final verdict: Beautiful, but not the right book for me. I don't have the right reading temperament for Ratner's slow and deliberate style.
48 of 50 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Based on the real life experiences of the author in the 1970's, this novel is about the horror in Cambodia when the communists took over. Like the author, the main character was a child of the privileged class and when the revolution came she was hurtled into a cruel world of poverty and hunger. Her father was imprisoned and never seen again. Her uncle and cousins were sent off to labor camps to die, her baby sister was stricken with a fever and she and her mother were forced into hard labor in the rice fields. I cringed at the dreadfulness of it all and learned more than I ever wanted to know about this Cambodian genocide in which 1.7 million people (21%) of the population lost their lives.
Written in the first person, through the voice of a young girl, the characters come to life and their suffering is incredibly overwhelming in its depiction of displacement, starvation, slave labor and pain. However, there is also a streak of survival instinct in spite of their world bitterly collapsing around them.
I couldn't put this book down and couldn't take my eyes from the page because it was so well written and brought to life a time and a place and some wonderful unforgettable characters. Certainly, the memory of those who have died and suffered at this sad time in history should never be forgotten.
Written in the first person, through the voice of a young girl, the characters come to life and their suffering is incredibly overwhelming in its depiction of displacement, starvation, slave labor and pain. However, there is also a streak of survival instinct in spite of their world bitterly collapsing around them.
I couldn't put this book down and couldn't take my eyes from the page because it was so well written and brought to life a time and a place and some wonderful unforgettable characters. Certainly, the memory of those who have died and suffered at this sad time in history should never be forgotten.
36 of 40 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Vaddey Ratner notes that while fictional, many of this book's events actually happened to her during the Khmer Rouge's Cambodian depredations. She made the right choice writing this as a novel, releasing herself from the perceived bounds of absolute truth - while clearly telling a story based on memory and experience. And, releasing the reader from the sometimes too-close proximity of a memoir's real-life author.
Told in the first-person voice of Raami, a young girl, the narrative captivates, heartbreaks, but never feels overpowering or melodramatic. She is a completely believable child narrator, which is an impressive writing achievement. The narration is in a very personal and direct style that lets the story's events carry all the impact. This is most effective during some terrible early occurrences when she behaves like any child would, leading to bad ends.
This also makes it a difficult book to "love" in the conventional way. A few scenes, because the narration is so all-business, are all the more tragic. You want to reach in and stop the events, because you know this happened - if it didn't happen exactly to Ratner as she wrote it, it surely happened to somebody. So I didn't finish this book impressed with Ratner's literary skill as much as sad for all the tragedies that we forget or never notice.
The Cambodian genocide of 1975-79 was a slow-motion crime, somewhat different than the WWII death camps. People were moved from place to place, with the educated core of society eliminated through famine, disease or execution, as the Khmer Rouge attempted to recreate an entirely agricultural peasant society. I've known about it, but very little from up-close accounts. While not a "true" story, I think this gave a clear picture of what went on. It's horrible.... Read more ›
Told in the first-person voice of Raami, a young girl, the narrative captivates, heartbreaks, but never feels overpowering or melodramatic. She is a completely believable child narrator, which is an impressive writing achievement. The narration is in a very personal and direct style that lets the story's events carry all the impact. This is most effective during some terrible early occurrences when she behaves like any child would, leading to bad ends.
This also makes it a difficult book to "love" in the conventional way. A few scenes, because the narration is so all-business, are all the more tragic. You want to reach in and stop the events, because you know this happened - if it didn't happen exactly to Ratner as she wrote it, it surely happened to somebody. So I didn't finish this book impressed with Ratner's literary skill as much as sad for all the tragedies that we forget or never notice.
The Cambodian genocide of 1975-79 was a slow-motion crime, somewhat different than the WWII death camps. People were moved from place to place, with the educated core of society eliminated through famine, disease or execution, as the Khmer Rouge attempted to recreate an entirely agricultural peasant society. I've known about it, but very little from up-close accounts. While not a "true" story, I think this gave a clear picture of what went on. It's horrible.... Read more ›
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
engrossing
So beautifully written and heartbreaking. This story is filled with tragedy and triumph. You root for Raami as her arduous adventure unfolds.
Published 3 days ago by Ayanna Israel
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well written and compelling
Somber, but I strongly recommend it. Great use of language as threads are woven together from a young girls perspective of the upheaval of her world.
Published 3 days ago by Lorri Crittenden
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well written
Fiction based off a true story. Gave me insight to the struggle that went on in Cambodia that I had no idea about.
Published 6 days ago by Adrienne Wolf
4.0 out of 5 stars
Truly Rivoting
This was a book that was both hard to read and hard to put down. For me, it had the effect of putting a face on the atrocities that happened in Cambodia. Read more
Published 7 days ago by Bob G.
5.0 out of 5 stars
new author
Beautifully written, lyrical and very descriptive, I could not put this book down. The author takes you on the journey seen from the eyes of a child through Cambodia during the... Read more
Published 7 days ago by Sherry
4.0 out of 5 stars
Shocking story of Cambodian persecution in the 1970's
Very descriptive writing style. Loved the use of imagery from child's view and adult views. Good reminders of the importance of making quiet time for ourselves as the Buddhist... Read more
Published 8 days ago by Maggie
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fantastic read.
an amazing story, written with a simplicity and directness that transports the reader through an evil time in Cambodian history. An epic thriller. I could not put the book down. Read more
Published 8 days ago by Luke
5.0 out of 5 stars
My favortie book.
I read the book because I remembered the "killing fields" in Cambodia. I liked the style of her writing. Read more
Published 8 days ago by The Flitzer
5.0 out of 5 stars
This was an excellent novel into the Cambodian experience
Very little is known to the younger generations who were born post Vietnam era. It is inconceivable to comprehend the inhumanity of those who seek power.
Published 10 days ago by Carol M
2.0 out of 5 stars
Bored to death
too much info for one book.....couldn't finish it. Better editing could have helped big time as this horrible tragedy needs to be exposed to the world.
Published 11 days ago by Suzanne E. Piro
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