"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.


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


Ha Jin, author of Waiting, winner of the National Book Award
A gut-wrenching story, told with honesty, restraint, and dignity.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Chanrithy Him vividly recounts her trek through the hell of the "killing fields." She gives us a child's-eye view of a Cambodia where rudimentary labor camps for both adults and children are the norm and modern technology no longer exists. Death becomes a companion in the camps, along with illness. Yet through the terror, the members of Chanrithy's family remain loyal to one another, and she and her siblings who survive will find redeemed lives in America.

FROM THE CRITICS

David Chandler

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

New York Times

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

Ha Jin

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

Le Ly Hayslip

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

Katherine A. Powers

Astonishing and heartbreaking.... Written in spare, visual prose that makes the world it describes tangible. —Boston Globe Read all 11 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Every Cambodian has a story to tell. This memoir is told from a child's viewpoint about the brutal Cambodian killing field is a touching and illuminating human account and should not be missed by anyone around the world. — (Le Ly Hayslip, author of When Heaven and Earth Change Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace)

A gut-wrenching story told with honesty, restraint, and dignity, When Broken Glass Floats is one of those books that open your mind to a world of unimaginable brutality and horror. This book, packed with authentic details testifies to the gratuitousness of human suffering inflicted by a violent revolution. Page by page it brings history to life. — (Ha Jin, author of Waiting, winner of the National Book Award)

Chanrithy's helped bring to life the suffering of the Cambodian people during the Khmer Rouge reign. Even though Chanrithy was young during the genocide, she never forgot her mission to educate the world. I commend her for this effort. — (Dith Pran)

Sidney H. Schanberg