Vaddey Ratner's debut novel, In the Shadow of the Banyan, is an autobiographical treatment of the Khmer Rouge's takeover of Cambodia and subsequent genocide. Raami, the seven-year-old Vaddey surrogate, is the narrator of the horrendous events. (Vaddey herself was five when the Khmer Rouge dispossessed her royal family; they never saw their home again.)
Raami, her parents and other family members are driven out to the countryside, where, in rhetoric reminiscent of China's Cultural Revolution, soldiers with bullhorns scream at them, commanding them to forget the past in order to create a new Cambodia. Families are separated so that loyalty will revert to the state, not remain with individuals, yet Raami, who adores her father, a poet, never transfers allegiance from her family, even when her father is lost to them.
Four years of privation, illness, killingly hard work and sorrow are recounted with equal parts poignancy, lyrical reflection and heartrending remembrance of halcyon times at home, connected by Raami's hope for survival. Her beloved father is the reason that hope stays alive for Raami. "When I thought you couldn't walk, I wanted to make sure you could fly," he tells her, recalling the polio she had as an infant. "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."
Ratner's touching and beautifully written In the Shadow of the Banyan celebrates the human spirit, the power of story and imagination and the triumph of good over evil. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.