When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge [Hardcover]

Chanrithy Him (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2000

In a Cambodian proverb, "when broken glass floats" is the time when evil triumphs over good. That time began for the Him family in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia and they began their trek through the hell of the "killing fields". In a heart-wrenching memoir, Chanrithy Him vividly tells of her childhood, growing up in a Cambodia where rudimentary labour camps are the norm and technology, such as cars and electricity, no longer exitst. As she struggles to understand the suffering and violence around her, she shows proof of unbounded courage and great hope. Death becomes a companion at the camps, along with illness. Yet through the terror, Him's family remains loyal to one another despite the Khmer Rouge's demand of loyalty only to itself. Moments of inexpressible sacrifice and love lead them to bring what little food they have to the others, even at the risk of their own lives. In 1979, "broken glass" finally sinks. From a family of 12, only five of the Him children survive. They are desperate to escape the Khmer Rouge but sad to leave what they see as the empty shell of Cambodia. From refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines, sponsored by an uncle in Oregon, they begin new lives in America.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Chea, how come good doesn't win over evil?" young Chanrithy Him asks her sister, after the brutal Khmer Rouge have seized power in Cambodia, but before hunger makes them too weak for philosophy. Chea answers only with a proverb: When good and evil are thrown together into the river of life, first the klok or squash (representing good) will sink, and the armbaeg or broken glass (representing evil) will float. But the broken glass, Chea assures her, never floats for long: "When good appears to lose, it is an opportunity for one to be patient, and become like God."

Before this proverb could come true, Chanrithy had to watch her mother, father, and five of her brothers and sisters die, murdered by the Khmer Rouge or fatally weakened by malnutrition, disease, and overwork. Now living in Oregon, where she studies posttraumatic stress disorder among Cambodian survivors, Chanrithy has written a first-person account of the killing fields that's remarkable for both its unflinching honesty and its refusal to despair. In wrenchingly immediate prose, she describes atrocities the rest of the world might prefer to ignore: her sick yet still breathing mother, thrown along with corpses into a well; a pregnant woman beaten to death with a spade, the baby struggling inside her; a sister impossibly swollen with edema, her starving body leaking fluid from the webbing between her toes.

The mind retreats from horrors like these--and yet what emerges most strongly from this memoir is the triumph of life. Chanrithy is determined to honor her pledge to the dying Chea, to study medicine so she can help others live. When Broken Glass Floats accomplishes the same goal in a different way. "As a survivor, I want to be worthy of the suffering that I endured," Chanrithy writes; by giving such eloquent voice to her dead, she has proven herself more than worthy of her suffering--and theirs. --Chloe Byrne

From Publishers Weekly

Born in Cambodia in 1965, Him lived from the age of three with the fear of war overflowing from neighboring Vietnam and suffered through the U.S.'s bombing of her native land. However, thanks to her loving and open-minded family, her outlook remained positive--until 1975, when the Khmer Rouge seized control and turned her world upside down. (According to a Cambodian proverb, "broken glass floats" when the world is unbalanced.) Armed with a nearly photographic memory, Him forcefully expresses the utter horror of life under the revolutionary regime. Evacuated from Phnom Penh and and shunted from villages to labor camps, her close-knit family of 12 was decimated: both parents were murdered, and five of her siblings starved or died from treatable illnesses. Meanwhile, the culture of local communities was destroyed and replaced with the simple desire to survive famine. Yet for all their suffering throughout these years, the surviving Hims remained loyal to one another, saving any extra food they collected and making dangerous trips to other camps to share it with weaker family members. Friendships were also formed at great risk, and small favors were exchanged. But by the end of the book, Him finds herself surprised when she encounters remnants of humanity in people, for she has learned to live by mistrusting, by relying on her own wits and strength. When the Khmer Rouge were overthrown, Him moved to a refugee camp in Thailand. Today she works with the Khmer Adolescent Project in Oregon. This beautifully told story is an important addition to the literature of this period. (Apr.) FYI: In the January 17 issue, PW reviewed another memoir of growing up under the Khmer Rouge, First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (April 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393048632
• ISBN-13: 978-0393048636
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,098,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A chilling autobiography, June 9, 2000

By 

M. Desoer (Bay Area, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge (Hardcover)

I read this book immediately after I finished "First They Killed My Father." Both are autobiographies by young women who were children at the time of the Khmer Rouge's rule of Cambodia. Rather than being redundant, I found that this book complemented the other.

Both girls were daughters of relatively privileged families who were part of the forced evacuation of Phnom Phen. The author of this one, Ms. Him, was a few years older, and this slight age difference provides some different perspective. In addition, Ms. Him's family evacuated in a different geographical direction, which also affected her family's displacement over those years. The author shows how, as a child, she demonstrated incredible determination and courage in the face of the most horrendous conditions imaginable -- she even escapes one work camp as she was near death from dysentary.

This book provides another necessary and compelling autobiography of a horrible time in history.

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My first book review, April 4, 2000

By 

Daniel B. Dickason "Mr. Dan" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge (Hardcover)

In a strange twist, I knew the author as a student, and later a collegue doing research on the Khmer Rouge era. I heard parts of the story from her, but was overwhelmed by the prose as she told it. I have heard the stories of many Cambodians, but because of this book I felt I could actually see what was happening. Her family and friends came alive for me on the pages of this remarkable narrative. It is a triumphant tribute to her departed relatives. I wish her the best and hope she will continue writing.

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A child's-eye perspective of the great Cambodian tragedy., April 7, 2000

By 

R. ARANT "Toun" (Lanesville, Indiana USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge (Hardcover)

Told in an unusually vivid style, "When Broken Glass Floats" provides a striking new perspective even to those readers already hardened from study of events in Cambodia during the Pol Pot regime. The scenes of the evacuation of Phnom Penh, family separation, slow starvation, and the deaths of members of the author's immediate family materialize as if on film.