Much of the literature on Cambodia deals with the Khmer Rouge days, somewhat less on the glories of Angkor Wat.  Travelers who haven’t read on either subject prior to entering Cambodia invariably dash to bookstores to catch up on what they’ve seen and heard. 

Here are a few books we here at WoWasis would consider essential reading: 

Fiction 

In Apsara Jet (2001, ISBN 0-9708862-0-9), Nicolas Merriweather weaves the tale of an unemployed Yank pilot who gets sucked into the world of underworld intrigue in Cambodia.  Fans of Bangkok Fiction will recognize elements of the genre in his uneasy romantic and professional relationships. 

Bangkok Fiction author Christopher G. Moore’s detective Calvino follows the trail of a missing farang to Phnom Penh, where he finds himself embroiled in an international shell-game, in Cut Out (1999, ISBN 974-87116-3-3). 

Nathan Mills’ The Third Attempt (2005, ISBN 974-92669-8-6) is an international thriller set primarily in Malaysia, with a bit of action in Phnom Penh.  Here, a powerful family rules police and politics, while their out-of-control son rapes and kills at will.  He kidnaps a diplomat’s daughter, mistaking her for a local girl, which sets in motion a juggernaut of vengeance.  To Western eyes, the plot initially appears unrealistic; to Eastern readers, it’s business as usual. 

Non-fiction Roland Neveu, a photographer who witnessed the fall of Phnom Penh, chronicles the years 1973 to 1999 in a large-format black and white photo essay, Cambodia: Years of Turmoil (2000, ISBN 974-85796-8-9) 

David Chandler has chronicled the ravages of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge régime as well as anyone.  His Brother Number One: a Political Biography of Pol Pot (1992, ISBN 974-7551-18-7) provides a very interesting historical and psychological view into the makeup of the man.   In Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison (2000, ISBN 974-7551-15-2), Chandler takes us into the prison where over 14,000 were murdered, providing data on arrests, interrogations, trials, and executions. 

French ethnologist François Bizot was captured by the Khmer Rouge while on a routine outing, and was one of the very few foreigners who survived.  His chilling The Gate (2000, ISBN 0-099-44919-6), chronicles his capture, imprisonment, and ultimate freedom. 

Bunheang Ung, with writer Martin Stuart-Fox, tells the story from the perspective of a Cambodian who lived through it, an educated man who feigned ignorance in a successful attempt to survive.  An artist, Ung committed atrocities and various other scenes to memory, and later recreated them on paper, dozens of which appear in The Murderous Revolution (1998, ISBN 974-8299-14-7). 

Sam Sotha’s In the Shade of a Quiet Killing Place (2007, ISBN 978-974-88163-4-0) includes his drawings depicting his days as a prisoner in slavery to the Khmer Rouge.  Of particular interest is his family’s transition to life in the U.S., and his eventual occupation as Secretary-General of the Cambodia Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority. 

In the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge era, Cambodia is going through a transitional stage, tragic, comical, and cathartic.  Gonzo writer Amit Gilboa chronicles these often-strange times, in his careening Off the Rails in Phnom Penh: Into the Dark Heart of Guns, Girls, and Ganja (1998, ISBN 974-8303-34-9). 

That intrepid Yank expat, James Eckardt, ends up living in Phnom Penh for a year as a writer, and chronicles the times wonderfully in The Year of Living Stupidly: Boom, Bust, and Cambodia (2001, ISBN 974-8303-48-9) 

Most visitors to Cambodia become entranced by Khmer sculpture, whether seeing it in situ, or at the National Museum in Phnom Penh.  An indispensable book on the subject is Emma C. Bunker and Douglas Latchford’s Adoration and Glory: the Golden Age of Khmer Art. (2004, ISBN 1-58886-070-1), describing the history and technique, with fine photographic examples of the art form.