When Broken Glass Floats: Growing up under the Khmer Rouge

David Chandler

In this breathtaking, luminous memoir, Chanrithy Him takes us into the chaotic world of the Khmer Rouge.

Ha Jin

A gut-wrenching story, told with honesty, restraint, and dignity.

Katherine A. Powers

Astonishing and heartbreaking.... Written in spare, visual prose that makes the world it describes tangible. —Boston Globe

Le Ly Hayslip

A touching and illuminating human account ....should not be missed by anyone around the world.

New York Times

Intelligent and morally aware ....[Him] tells us what it was like to struggle to survive while others played out utopian dreams.

William H. Sack

[An] eloquent chronicle of survival, courage and perseverance.

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 Cahners Business Information.|

Ai Ling Louie

Him certainly tells an important and heart-wrenching story.
—A Magazine

Bernstein

During the three years that the Khmer Rouge tried to create an agrarian utopia in Cambodia, two million people are believed to have died from execution, starvation and disease. Two million -- a horrifying number, but so large as to seem almost an abstraction, like the distance to the nearest star. The number gains far greater psychological force with [this] new memoirs, whose author, a young girl in the Cambodia of the time, describes the terror and losses she suffered during the Khmer Rouge revolution in wrenchingly particular terms... [Him] tells her stories straightforwardly, vividly, and without any strenuous effort to explicate their importance, allowing the stories themselves to create their own impact.
—The New York Times

Phillips

There are few books that give a refugee's point of view as clearly and passionately as Him's. Her book is further proof that in any war, from Cambodia to Kosovo to Iraq, it's often the innocent who suffer the most.
—Time Out New York

Kirkus Reviews

A worthy and compelling debut by Him, a survivor of the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge. In 1975 the Khmer Rouge gained power in Cambodia, leaving a wake of destruction and terror in their path. In this graphic memoir, told from a child's perspective, Him vividly recounts her memories of the war, which began when she was a child of four. Separated and forced into labor camps, death and illness became constant companions to the Him family—of the 12 of them, only 5 survived. Yet, throughout her struggles and losses, Him's enduring hope, strength, and family loyalty gave her the courage to carry on. Sponsored by an uncle in Oregon, Him and her siblings were finally able to escape Cambodia in 1981 after years of torture and neglect. They have attempted to build new lives but even to this day they are continuously haunted by their tragic memories. "I have been reincarnated with a new body, but an old soul. It lives symbiotically inside of me," Him says in her introduction. Him is just one of the thousands of Cambodian refugees who feel this way. Since 1989, the author has been involved as a researcher on the Khmer Adolescent Project, a federally-funded study of post-traumatic stress disorder among young Cambodian refugees. It was their stories (as well as her own) echoing in Him's mind that brought her to write this story. Her memoir seems to be both an attempt to face her own circumstances as well as to open the past and avenge the victims of the Khmer Rouge. A simply told, yet inspirational memoir about the reign of the Khmer Rouge that helps to shed light on the plight of the Cambodian people. (photos)