In the Shadow of the Banyan

In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner is a great novel. A girl and her family witness and go through the Cambodian genocide, at the end of the 1970s. The book reads as if riding a roller-coaster. It describes horrible atrocities followed by lovely family scenes of poetry and hope. The story is quite touching and the accounts of Cambodian culture and myths are riveting.

Cambodia

While wages and benefits often remain below levels needed to provide proper housing and balanced diets, the manufacturing investment — foreign direct investment in Cambodia rose 70 percent last year from 2011 — is starting to raise millions of people out of destitution. “People along the Mekong River are being lifted out of poverty by foreign investment inflows driven by higher Chinese wages,” said Peter Brimble, the senior economist for Cambodia at the Asian Development Bank.

 Source: Keith Bradsher, NYT.