Word: bizot
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Gate, the memoirs of Fran?ois Bizot, a French scholar of Cambodian Buddhism who plausibly claims to be the only Westerner released from a Khmer Rouge prison?a jungle hellhole called Anlong Veng?now delivers a cruel, irrefutable indictment. The book is at once a major historical document, informed by a thoughtful analysis of the human response to suffering and death, and an exhilarating war narrative...
...greatest tribute to Bizot's literary talents is that one believes every word of his phantasmagoric tale. In his foreword, John le Carr? calls the book "that rarest thing: an original classic." And he's right; Bizot's suspenseful pacing and his ability to penetrate the souls of the players in his drama place the book in the great tradition of moralistic French thrillers. The scene where the author, just released from prison, emerges from the jungle on foot to deliver a secret communiqu? from the Khmer Rouge to the French charg? d'affaires is straight out of The Count...
...book comprises two main narratives: that of Bizot's imprisonment in Anlong Veng in 1970, when the Khmer Rouge were still a rural guerrilla movement, and that of his return to Phnom Penh in 1975, when he showed up at the French embassy at the exact moment the Khmer Rouge arrived. As the only person there fluent in both French and Khmer, he served as the principal liaison between the French and the new regime, a job that gave him a first-hand view of the enforced evacuation of the city. One of his principal duties was to help...