Vaddey Ratner

Raami er sju år gammel. Hun er prinsesse i den kambodsjanske kongefamilien, og lever en privilegert tilværelse i Phnom Penh. Men en dag snus alt på hodet. Borgerkrigen når byen og palassene. Røde Khmer tvinger befolkningen til å forlate hjemmene sine og fører dem ut på landsbygda, hvor de blir internert i arbeidsleirer. Brått er Raamis idylliske barndom over. Raamis familie utgir seg for å være bønder. Hvis deres virkelige identitet blir kjent vil de bli henrettet. Til tross for det brutale livet med slavearbeid og hungersnød, er Raami sterk. Hun klynger seg til barndommens minner og historiene som faren fortalte henne. Hun holder fast ved håpet, og forstår at selv i de meste ekstreme øyeblikk finnes det lojalitet og solidaritet.

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. 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.

Leaving the safety of America, Teera returns to Cambodia for the first time since her harrowing escape as a child refugee. She carries a letter from a man who mysteriously signs himself as “the Old Musician” and claims to have known her father in the Khmer Rouge prison where he disappeared twenty-five years ago. In Phnom Penh, Teera finds a society still in turmoil, where perpetrators and survivors of unfathomable violence live side by side, striving to mend their still beloved country. She meets a young doctor who begins to open her heart, immerses herself in long-buried memories and prepares to learn her father’s fate. Meanwhile, the Old Musician, who earns his modest keep playing ceremonial music at a temple, awaits Teera’s visit with great trepidation. He will have to confess the bonds he shared with her parents, the passion with which they all embraced the Khmer Rouge’s illusory promise of a democratic society, and the truth about her father’s end. A love story for things lost and things restored, a lyrical hymn to the power of forgiveness, Music of the Ghosts is an unforgettable journey through the embattled geography of the heart and its hidden chambers where love can be reborn.