Book
Khmer Legends
Khmer Legends is a collection of Cambodian folk tales and legends by Demaz Tep Baker, published by Outskirts Press in 2009.[1] The stories come from Baker's own childhood in Cambodia in the 1950s and 1960s, when folk tales were told aloud.[1]
About the book
Khmer legends were passed down orally from generation to generation, by storytellers and by grandparents.[1] In these tales, animals have special powers and the belief in spirits is still alive.[1][2]
Baker spent the decade before publication gathering and writing down the stories of her childhood so that they would live on for future generations. She wrote them largely from memory and translated them from Cambodian.[1] One story, "Battambang," came to her from William Nathaniel Harben, who heard it while visiting Battambang province during his tour as a foreign service officer in Cambodia in the early 1970s.[1]
Publication and editions
Outskirts Press published the book on June 20, 2009, and lists it at 130 pages, under folklore and mythology.[1] Other listings give the paperback as 132 pages, with ISBN 9781432739379, and one gives a publication date of June 22, 2009.[2][3][4]
Related works
Khmer Legends Part III, a later collection of Cambodian folktales by Baker, has a street date of November 9, 2022. It includes the story of A-Lẻv, a boy born to poor and uneducated parents. He grows from a trickster into a young man who learns to read and write, and in the end his humility earns him respect.[5]