Book
Crossing Three Wildernesses
Crossing Three Wildernesses: A Memoir is the life story of the Cambodian poet U Sam Oeur, written with Ken McCullough and published in 2005.[1][2] The three wildernesses of the title are execution, disease and starvation, the three forms of death Cambodians faced under the Khmer Rouge.[1][2]
About the book
Oeur grew up in a farming family in the Cambodian countryside, where as a boy he herded water buffalo.[3] In 1961 he received a scholarship to California State University. After returning to Cambodia in 1968 he married, was elected to the National Assembly of the Khmer Republic and served as a delegate to the United Nations.[3] When the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, he was held in six forced-labor camps and escaped the killing fields by pretending he could not read.[3]
The memoir records the horrors of the genocide and ends with prayers for peace and for freedom through democracy.[1][2] It is also an account of Cambodian culture, its people, myths and traditions.[1] Dith Pran wrote that it covers Cambodia from the end of French colonial rule to the struggle for power after the fall of Pol Pot, and that it joins Buddhism and democracy.[1][4]
Publication and editions
Coffee House Press published the book on May 1, 2005, in 320 pages, as ISBN 978-1-56689-167-1.[1] The publisher calls it the first memoir by a Cambodian government official from before the Khmer Rouge who survived the killing fields.[1][2] Ken McCullough translated it.[2] Linda Koutsky designed the cover, and publisher Allan Kornblum designed the text.[4] In 2013 an ADA Access Improvement Grant, administered by VSA Minnesota for the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, made the book available in a format for screen readers.[1]
Reception
The Star Tribune found that it shows the human experience behind the statistics of genocide.[1] The poet Bruce Weigl praised it as honest, clearheaded and moving.[1]