Books Set in Europe and Asia; London, England, Turkey, and Iraq

There are Rivers in the Sky, by Elif Shafak (2024)

This is by far the best book I have read in a long time.

Read:  May 13, 2026 while in the South China Sea

5 Stars

Books Set in Asia: Cambodia

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, by Loung Ung (2000)

 

Loung Ung was 5 years old when her world was upended by the Khmer Rouge.  She had been living a care-free childhood in an upper-middle class family in Phnom Penh, Cambodia with her parents and six siblings.  Her father was a government official, but when the Khmer Rouge overthrew the government, his life was in jeopardy if his work status was discovered.  In April 1975, the family had to leave Phnom Penh, hide their identity, and live as peasant farmers.  Eventually, they were captured and sent to forced-labor camps where they were given very little food.

 

This memoir is told through the eyes of Loung Ung, who was a child during this period of Cambodian history.  She describes the horrors of being separated from her family, how the Khmer soldiers can for her father, and he was never seen again.  She describes how starvation and malnutrition stole the life of her younger sister.  She describes how she, as a 7-year-old, was recruited into the Khmer as a child soldier.  She lived through the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime, and in 1979, was finally able to reunite with what remained of her family.  It is harrowing to imaging young children living through and being exposed to such hatred and horror.

 

Read: January 21, 2023

 

4 Stars

 

 

 

Books Set in Africa: Burundi

Small Country, by Gaël Faye (2018)

Small Country is a semi-autobiographical novel of Gabriel, a young boy growing up in Burundi in the 1990s.  He had an idyllic childhood, living in Bujumbura, the capital city of Burundi to a French diplomat father and a Tutsi Rwandan mother.  Most of his closest young friends also had white fathers and Black mothers.  His life is sheltered from the politics brewing in his country.

As a 10-year old boy, he spent his days stealing mangos from neighbors’ trees and selling them back to tree’s owners.  He is oblivious to the rising tensions erupting in Rwanda, other than the whispers he hears from his parents.

His mother is a Rwandan refugee and has family still living in her home country.  She worries about her native country.  Her younger brother decided to return to Rwanda to fight for the Tutsi, who are being slaughtered by the Hutus.  Gabriel becomes aware of conflict when his family visits their Rwandan family to attend his uncle’s wedding.  While there, he eavesdrops and hears his aunt describing the violence and genocide of Tutsis.

The violence knows no borders and erupts in Burundi, too.  Gabriel recalls the first democratic election of the country’s president in June 1993.  He was the country’s first Hutu president and had hoped to smooth relations between the Hutus and Tutsi in the country.  When he was assassinated 3 months later, the country erupted into a civil war.  The political climate had a profound impact on Gabriel.  His young friends are anxious to take up the “cause” and defend their neighborhood.  Gabriel retreats into books and befriends and elderly Greek widow who has a house filled with books.

The civil war forced its citizens to choose sides.  Violence and death are all around and curfews are in place.  Young Gabriel is suddenly faced with a terrible choice that will end his childhood with which ever option he selects.

This is a small novel, but very powerful.

Read:  July 25, 2020

5 Stars