In the Shadow of the Banyan (49 page)
When I returned to live in Cambodia with my husband and daughter, one of the first things I did was to surround our new home with flowers I remembered from my childhood home. I filled our small garden with orchid, jasmine, bird of paradise, lobster claw, and frangipani of different colors, even though, I learned, Cambodians believe it is a flower that attracts ghosts. If so, I thought, it was a fitting offering. I filled our vases each day with fresh stems of lotus. A couple of years later, we bought a piece of land in Siem Reap and built a house there, which for me was very therapeutic, a willful act to counter the destruction I had helplessly witnessed as a child.
How does your family, specifically your mother, feel about your decision to write
In the Shadow of the Banyan?
My family is extremely supportive. They’ve watched me persevere for so long with this. They’ve not only seen me tormented by my recollection, by my reckoning with the past, but also by the labor of writing itself. They are very happy that this is a story I can now share with the world.
As for my mother, she’s very proud. I couldn’t have written this book without her blessing, and, of course, her sharing of painful memories. Some of the stories about family members she told me have made their way into the narrative. We’ve been through everything together. This book is hers, too.
An important theme of your novel is the power of stories. What do you hope readers will take away from your own storytelling?
I’ve always loved stories, the written word. Even at a very young age, I sensed their intrinsic power. Like Raami, I saw and understood the world through stories. In Cambodia, under the Khmer Rouge, when I was lost in a forest or abandoned by my work unit among the vast rice fields because I moved too slowly, I would recall the legends my father or nanny had told me or those tales I’d been able to read myself. I’d invoke them like incantations, chanting aloud descriptions and dialogues I’d memorized, to chase away my fear of being alone in the middle of nowhere, in the silence around me. Stories were magic spells, I felt, and storytelling, the ability to tell and recall something, was a kind of sorcery, a power you could use to transform and transport yourself. I still feel this way, and I think it shows in crafting
In the Shadow of the Banyan
as I did. But I hope the story is layered enough so that every reader finds the inspiration or message they seek.
© KRISTINA SHERK
V
addey Ratner was five years old when the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975. After four years, having endured forced labor, starvation, and near execution, she and her mother escaped while many of her family members perished. In 1981, she arrived in the U.S. as a refugee not knowing English and, in 1990, went on to graduate as her high school class valedictorian. She is a
summa cum laude
graduate of Cornell University, where she specialized in Southeast Asian history and literature. In recent years she traveled and lived in Cambodia and Southeast Asia, writing and researching, which culminated in her debut novel,
In the Shadow of the Banyan
. She lives in Potomac, Maryland. Please visit her website at
www.vaddeyratner.com
.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Vaddey Ratner
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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition August 2012
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Designed by Nancy Singer
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ratner, Vaddey.
In the shadow of the banyan / Vaddey Ratner.
p. cm.
1. Cambodia—History—1975–1979—Fiction. 2. Refugees—Cambodia—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3618.A876I52 2012
813'.6—dc23 2011033320
ISBN 978-1-4516-5770-8
ISBN 978-1-4516-5772-2 (ebook)