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Love and Loss in Cambodia: a memoir

Love and Loss in Cambodia is a memoir by Debra Groves Harman. As a teenager, she carried a heavy burden of grief and responsibility. First, her closest person died. Next, her father was critically injured in a traumatic car accident. Perhaps that explains why she's willing to leave the US and go to parts unknown--ending up in Cambodia, or more likely, she's following a traveling man she married in 1993. Memories are drawn from the '90s when the author lived in Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh. That decade was considered dangerous, with Khmer Rouge active on Route 4. When she first arrived in 1994, three Westerners had recently been killed by KR bandits, and three more Westerners had been kidnapped and were being held on Phnom Vour. She and her teacher friends at ACE can't predict what will happen next. In 1997, political opponents take the battle to the streets of Phnom Penh. Though many people flee the violence of the fighting, she and her husband stay. This story is one of adventure. It's also about finding friends, not only the Cambodian people who become family to her, but others from all over the world. Ultimately, it’s a story about facing the truth, about loss—and about resilience. This book will resonate with those who love Cambodia and Southeast Asia, or readers who want to know what it was like to live as a Westerner in that era.Read more

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