The past...in French

One author who I won't be reading anytime soon despite having written two books on her experiences under the Khmer Rouge and her eventual return to Cambodia over twenty years later, is Claire Ly (right). The reason for my tardiness is that they are both in French, with her first book also available in Italian, Polish and Khmer. But not in English, which is a shame. The author published Escape From Hell: Four years in Khmer Rouge Camps, in 2002 and followed that up with Return to Cambodia in 2007. She's also recently completed an illustrated children's book, Kosal & Moni, about how two children find out about the past. Claire Ly was a professor of philosophy when the Khmer Rouge confined her and her family to work camps after 1975. Her father and husband were murdered and she lost other close family members before she finally reached a refugee camp, from where she emigrated to France, her home today. The experiences she endured altered her Buddhist beliefs and she was baptized as a Catholic in 1983. More here in French.