A Representation of the Shattered Selves in Post Khmer Rouge Cambodia: A Study of Vaddey Ratner's Novels

Theadora War

Abstract: The novels, In the Shadow of the Banyan and Music of the Ghosts are interweaved with a sense of belonging, displacement and nostalgia which this study attempts to explore; of how the Cambodian novelist and Khmer Rouge survivor, Vaddey Ratner, succeeds in taking on the responsibility of accounting the collective experiences of the diaspora, representing contemporary situations of fragmented identities, or the shattered selves, thus allowing for the challenges that her protagonists encounter, vis-?-vis, the relation to both the lost homeland (Cambodia) and the new homeland (USA).

Keywords: Homeland, identity, nostalgia, displacement, memory