In the Shadow of the Banyan

A Novel

De: Vaddey Ratner

Narrado por: Greta Lee

Told from the tender perspective of a young girl who comes of age amid the Cambodian killing fields, this searing first novel - based on the author’s personal story - has been hailed by Little Bee author Chris Cleave as “a masterpiece… utterly heartbreaking and impossibly beautiful.”

For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Soon the family’s world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus.

Over the next four years, as she endures the deaths of family members, starvation, and brutal forced labor, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of childhood - the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival. Displaying the author’s extraordinary gift for language, In the Shadow of the Banyan is testament to the transcendent power of narrative and a brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience.

©2012 Vaddey Ratner (P)2012 Simon & Schuster

Reseñas de la Crítica

"This stunning memorial expresses not just the terrors ofthe Khmer Rouge but also the beauty of what was lost. A hauntingly powerful novel imbued with the richness of old Cambodian lore, the devastation of monumental loss, and the spirit of survival." ( Publishers Weekly)

"Vaddey Ratner's novel is ravishing in its ability to humanize and personalize the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s. She makes us look unflinchingly at the evil that humankind is capable of, but she gives us a child to hold our hand - an achingly believable child - so that we won't be overwhelmed. As we have passed from one century of horrors and been plunged into a new century giving us more of the same, In the Shadow of the Banyan is a truly important literary event." (Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain)

"Often lyrical, sometimes a bit ponderous: a painful,personal record of Cambodia's holocaust." ( Kirkus Reviews)

Powerful story that happened in my life time....

Would you listen to In the Shadow of the Banyan again? Why?

This is a powerful story about a young girl and her family that were impacted by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The story, although fiction, is a version of a young girls experience in a war torn world where little makes sense. The author has a beautiful way of putting words together to paint pictures in your mind and find poetry in the phrase. Very good listen! I would recommend this to anyone who wants to look at a perspective of Cambodian history that no one wants to relive. So the story is sad... but oh so well written.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I both laughed and cried while listening to this book. I think the author did an amazing job of looking at devastation in human existence and then finding ways to find some love/hope and sometimes even beauty in awfulness.

Beautiful story of survival perseverance

This was an amazing and beautifully written story in which the author shares her first hand experience of her life in Cambodia. The descriptions and imagery are outstanding and the story of hardship, struggle and love will stay with me for years. I definitely recommend this book

Heartbreakingly beautiful

If you are having doubts on reading this book, don’t. Everything from the story, the writing style, the narration was perfect. This story was so heartbreaking but it was hands down one of the best books I have ever read/listened to. I wanted to reach through the pages of this book and scoop the little girl (main character) up and protect her from the evils of this world. My heart broke for not only her but all the real people that suffered through this atrocity. Beautifully written and beautifully narrated.

Superb, touching story enhanced by the narratrion

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Absolutely, I have done so to many of my friends and will continue to do so. It is a poignant story of hope and resilience, written in prose that is almost poetry.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Raami of course, followed by her mother.They are the central characters of the story around whom the whole tale revolves. Their fortitude and resilience are amazing!

What does Greta Lee bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Narration by Greta Lee, with her oriental enunciation and superb voice modulations brought an entirely new emotional dimension to the story, which the readers of print or Kindle copy will surely miss. Her voice is soothing and the narration speed is perfect!!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I wish I could have done that, but it is not possible with all else going on.

Any additional comments?

Vaddey Ratners prose is peotry, that was brought to life by Grta Ratner's narration.I had another angle on this book: I have spent two 3-weeks stints on a teaching assignment in Phnom Penh and hence, I got to know Cambodia and its people far better than a casual tourist would. Further, being of Indian origin, my deeper study of links of the Cambodian religion and culture with that of India as well as my delving into history of Cambodia including the details of Khmer Rogue regime, added a further dimension to my appreciation of the story.

While this familiarity enhanced my enjoyment, the book will touch anyone with a heart!

Lest We Forget

This novel relates a story that must be told!! Lest we forget! As with the Holocaust we must hold up a mirror of our inhumanity to ourselves. These stories are told in past history, in the present, and are yet to be written in the future. Alas, our species is deeply flawed! God have mercy!

A tribute to story telling and parental love

I didn't think I would enjoy this after seeing the Genocide Museum in Cambodia. However the author has written a beautiful tribute in which I felt she has showed herself so well to be her parent's daughter. The horrors of the regime were vanquished by her rich description of familial strength, ingenuity and love. I thought the narration excellent.

Incredible time in history

Would you consider the audio edition of In the Shadow of the Banyan to be better than the print version?

Learned from a different perspective what the people of Cambodia lived through during this time in history. A lesson in philosophy, courage and fortiude.

Fear, Terror, Hope and Love through a Child's Eyes

This autobiographical novel by a member of the Cambodian royal family gave life to the news reports of the takeover of this region by the communists I had read decades ago. The father, whom the narrator lost, had been a prince and a famous poet and taught is handicapped daughter to see the world through his eyes. Despite the horror of seeing her family torn apart and the deprivations that left her homeless, hungry and sometimes alone, this eight-year old sees beauty around her and remembers the images painted by her father. The lyrical nature of the story-telling tied this loving daughter to her father even after their separation and what she fears is his death. Her guilt at having betrayed him because she was proud of who he was is palpable -- perhaps because these events are part of the true story of the author. The book has added dimensions in the unfolding of the painful relation with her own mother and the way the child narrator seeks out love from strangers, while trying to avoid those who would cause her further harm.

Before ordering this book, I read a long interview with the author in The Washington Post and knew about her life. Even this interview did not prepare me fully for the impact of the novel, although it left me wishing I knew more about what was fact and what was fiction.

This would be a good read even if the novel was not based on the horrible adventures of a small child who had to mature quickly in an environment so foreign to the love and plenty she had known.

Am Still Thinking About It

What a story.....it won't leave my mind. I was very involved in the peace movement during the Viet Nam conflict and how I could have missed this major event in Cambodia is mind boggling. Did the U.S. government simply decide to not allow this story in print or did I miss the whole thing??? After reading this book I did my own research on what happened in Cambodia following the Viet Nam debacle and was stunned. This story tells the tale from a very up close and personal point of view of events that occurred in Cambodia during the '70's. It is a hard read. The author has given Cambodia and history a look inside her country and an accounting that absolutely had to happen. Am so glad I finally took this out of my 'wish list' and gave it a listen.

Child's perspective

It is a story of beauty, family, pain, suffering, and sacrifice. I found it very interesting coming from the perspective of a child. It is truly horrifying what those people went through. This book was both hard to finish and hard to put down.