Book

Out of the Shadows of Angkor

Out of the Shadows of Angkor is a 2022 anthology of Cambodian poetry, prose and performance in English, edited by Sharon May and four fellow editors.[1][2] Its full title is Out of the Shadows of Angkor: Cambodian Poetry, Prose, and Performance through the Ages, and it gathers writing and visual art from fourteen centuries of Cambodian history.[3]

About the book

The anthology brings together the work of 33 authors, along with anonymous texts from the seventh century to the present.[4] Its forms include inscriptions, oaths, chants, songs, epics, folk tales and theater, as well as poems, short stories, novels and essays.[4] It sets translations of works first composed in Khmer, Sanskrit and French beside writing in English by members of the global Cambodian diaspora.[5] Writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries receive special attention, including those on four continents of the diaspora, from Australia to the United States, Canada and Europe.[5][2]

Nineteen translators prepared the English texts.[4] The volume includes rare and classical texts translated into English for the first time, modern Cambodian writing, and works by Cambodian refugees and members of the diaspora.[1][2] It also carries writing that was nearly lost during Cambodia's civil war, the Khmer Rouge regime (1975 to 1979) and its aftermath.[1][3] University of Hawaiʻi Press gives the length as nearly 400 pages; the review in SOJOURN counts 352 pages and about one hundred examples of Cambodian writing, while a review in the Journal of Social Sciences counts eighty-nine pieces.[2][6][7]

History

The volume grew out of a thirty-year effort to gather and champion Cambodian literary and cultural works.[1] Over more than a decade, Sharon May brought together a team of four fellow guest editors: Christophe Macquet, Trent Walker, Phina So and Rinith Taing.[4][6] Frank Stewart was the series editor.[1] The project drew on more than fifty contributors in several countries.[8]

The book is a companion to In the Shadow of Angkor: Contemporary Writing from Cambodia, the collection of contemporary Cambodian writing that Mānoa published in spring 2004.[6][3] Its editors call it a considerably larger, non-overlapping companion to that volume.[5] The titles of both issues refer to the temples of Angkor, whose fame has overshadowed Cambodia's literary heritage.[6] Sharon May writes that the book seeks to bring Cambodian literature out of the shadows of the great temples and out of the ashes of a war that killed most of the country's authors and destroyed countless books.[3] In her overview essay she recalls the writer Soth Polin telling her, "What we have lost is indescribable . . . what we have lost is not reconstructable."[2]

Contents

The book opens with a foreword by the Cambodian American author Vaddey Ratner and four introductory essays.[7] Sokunthary Svay contributed "On Cambodian American Writers," and Sharon May wrote "A Personal and Literary Journey through Cambodian Literature."[1][7] Trent Walker's essay gives an overview of the history of the Khmer language, some of its key features, and the meters and rhyme patterns of Khmer poetry.[8]

The texts are grouped as classical writing from 611 to 1930 CE, arranged by date, and modern writing from 1930 to the present, arranged by genre as poetry, fiction, nonfiction and performance.[6][8] A chapter from Tian Veasna's graphic novel Year of the Rabbit forms a sixth section.[7]

Classical writing

Trent Walker translated and introduced all but one of the nineteen classical selections, working from Sanskrit, Pali, Old Khmer, Middle Khmer and modern Khmer.[6] The section holds Old and Middle Khmer inscriptions and Buddhist chants, including a hymn to the Tree of Awakening, given as a Sanskrit inscription followed by a close Old Khmer translation.[7] It also includes the "Hymn to the Buddha's Feet," a dharma song traditionally chanted with complex melodies in Cambodian rituals.[1] Indradevi's "In Praise of Sister Queens" and Brah Rajasambhar's sixteenth-century poem "My Soul of Gold" anchor the section.[5] Other selections are the Reamker, the Khmer version of the Indian epic the Ramayana; Kaki, King Ang Duong's Khmer translation of a Thai verse novel; folk tales from the Alev Stories; and an excerpt from Brah Padumatther Som's tragic love story Tum Teav.[6][7]

Modern writing

The poetry section runs from Prince Areno Yukanthor's "On the Threshold of the Khmer Narthex," written in the French Symbolist style, to the Cambodian American Kosal Kheav's rap-style "Rewind."[7] Its poets range from Chey Chap and Pich Tum Kravel in Cambodia to Prince Amrindo Sisowath and Khau Ny Kim in France.[5] Macquet and May translated fifteen of the sixteen poems in the first half of the section, among them poems by Suy Hieng, Khun Srun and Pich Tum Kravel.[6] The second half holds poems written in English by Chath pierSath, BK Tuon, Princess Moon and Greg Santos, among others.[6] Several diaspora poems address displacement, trauma and the making of hyphenated identities.[6]

The fiction section opens with an excerpt from Nou Hach's 1947 novel Wilted Flower, translated by Vaddey Ratner, the story of young lovers who cannot marry after a sudden change in fortune.[6][7] It includes three short stories by Soth Polin, Sok Chanphal's "The Kerosene Lamp Ghost Stories" and "Buried Treasure," and Ty Chi Huot's Sky of the Lost Moon, translated by Rinith Taing.[7][6] Khun Srun appears with "A Small Request" and excerpts from his novel The Accused.[5]

In the nonfiction section, Rinith Taing translated Bunchan Mol's Political Prison, and Phina So wrote about her experience as a publisher in Cambodia; she also contributed a short story about the changing meanings of Khmer words.[6] The section includes an excerpt from "Her Father's Daughter" by the Cambodian Australian author Alice Pung.[7] Maria Hach's essay "An Archive of Haunting" appears with pieces by Boreth Ly and Elizabeth Chey.[5]

The performance section includes song lyrics translated by Macquet and May, among them "Champa of Battambang" by the singer-songwriter Sinn Sisamouth, and lyrics by Ma Laupi, who wrote songs for Sinn Sisamouth.[6][7] It also has rare samples of Bassac folk opera and the improvised Ayai folk theater.[7] The bard Kong Nay appears in an extended interview and with his bawdy lullaby "An Elephant Rocks Its Trunk."[5]

Art and apparatus

Nine black-and-white prints of oil paintings from Theanly Chov's series Surviving mark the turns between periods and genres.[6] A color reproduction of his painting "Touch," from the same series, is on the cover.[7] Most chapters carry a note by the translators or editors about the piece and, when known, its author, and the book closes with biographies of the contributors.[7]

Publication

University of Hawaiʻi Press published the book in Honolulu in September 2022.[3][6] It appeared as a double issue of Mānoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing, volume 33, issue 2, and volume 34, issue 1.[1][6] Frank Stewart and Pat Matsueda of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of English produced it.[3] The paperback carries ISBN 978-0-8248-9454-2.[7] Two selections, Svay's "On Cambodian American Writers" and Khun Srun's "A Small Request," translated by Macquet and May, were made free to read on Project MUSE.[9]

Reception

The SOJOURN review calls the book a major translation project, since all of its Cambodian writing is presented in English, and notes that it is meant mainly for English-reading members of the Cambodian diaspora.[6][8] Sokunthary Svay writes that the works stand on their own but would sit well beside the literature of other Southeast Asian countries, and she urges educators to teach them together with the diaspora writing of other immigrant groups in the United States.[6]

Access

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 University of Hawaiʻi Press, New MĀNOA anthology offers unprecedented collection (September 7, 2022)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Fisher College Library, catalog record
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 University of Hawaiʻi System News, Unprecedented Cambodian literature collection published
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 University of Hawaiʻi Press, anthology announcement
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 University of Hawaiʻi Press, Editor Q&A: Celebrating Cambodian poetry, prose, and performance
  6. ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 6.18 SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, book review
  7. ↑ 7.00 7.01 7.02 7.03 7.04 7.05 7.06 7.07 7.08 7.09 7.10 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14 Journal of Social Sciences (ThaiJo), book review (PDF)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 RichardHowe.com, Review of Out of the Shadows of Angkor (October 12, 2023)
  9. ↑ University of Hawaiʻi Press, posts tagged Cambodia
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