Book
The Disappeared
The Disappeared is a 2009 novel by the Canadian author Kim Echlin about a Montreal woman's search for the Cambodian man she loves.[1][2] The story follows Anne Greves across three decades, from Montreal to villages in Cambodia, set against the genocide of the Khmer Rouge years.[2]
The story
Anne is sixteen when she meets Serey at the Montreal club L'air du temps on Halloween night.[2] He is a Cambodian student of mathematics, five years older than she is, and the singer of a band called No Exit, named after Jean-Paul Sartre's play.[3] Serey cannot go home, because Pol Pot's regime has closed Cambodia's borders, and he has had no word from his family for four years.[1][3] The two fall in love through their shared passion for music, though Anne's father opposes the relationship.[1]
When the borders reopen, Serey returns to Cambodia alone to search for his family.[1] Anne tries to build a new life but cannot forget him, and she becomes fluent in Khmer.[1][4] Eleven years later she believes she sees him on television at a political rally, and she travels to Phnom Penh. A driver named Mau leads her to him.[3][4] Serey later becomes one of the many people who disappeared.[4]
Anne tells the story in the first and second person, speaking to Serey.[3] Serey tells her father, "My country is my skin."[3] The novel moves through genocide, disappearance, trauma, memory, grief and political violence, and the endurance of love. It asks how people claim the past, honor the dead and go on after loved ones disappear.[1][4]
Publication and editions
Hamish Hamilton Canada published the novel in Toronto in 2009.[1] Grove/Atlantic published a paperback edition on December 29, 2009, in 235 pages, as ISBN 9780802170668.[2] The Smithsonian's BookDragon gives the publication year as 2010.[4]
Echlin is a Canadian author who has worked as a documentary producer for CBC and teaches creative writing.[1][4]
Reception
The Disappeared was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award for Fiction.[1][4] The New York Times Book Review praised its picture of both the beauty and the horror of Cambodia.[2]