Soul Survivors gives voice to the women and children who survived the Khmer Rouge's secret genocide and the two decades of civil war that followed. The moving personal narratives document the lives of twelve people who stayed in Cambodia after the genocide when nearly two million people died between 1975 and 1979 from execution, starvation or disease.
It includes two refugees who came to the US as orphans, returning as young adults to help their country. Coming from diverse backgrounds, including a farmer, a teacher, a Buddhist nun, a landmine victim and a women's leader, the survivors' engaging accounts demonstrate the strength and goodness of the human spirit.
Additional chapters describe how the Khmer Rouge came to power, the role of the US in Cambodia, the problem of six million landmines, the Buddhist peace movement, and how to help women and children in Cambodia.
Soul Survivors includes a chronology of Cambodian history, a map of Cambodia and an index. Sixty-four photographs draw the reader into contemporary Cambodia to witness the survivors' courageous work to rebuild their lives, families and culture in one of the poorest nations of the world.
To schedule talks email: cambodiaedu@hotmail.com
Review: "These are the stories of survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime, but also survivors of war, of corrupt governments, of poverty, of hatred, of racism. It is in the details of their lives, as a teacher, a dancer, a doctor ... that one finds great heroism. The book is important because it is about the best of what it means to be human."
-Dr. Judy Ledgerwood, Center for Southeast Asian Studies Anthropology Department, Northern Illinois University
"An absorbing collection... fourteen resilient survivors tell their stories and endow their battered, courageous country, and the readers of this book, with some of their own energies, intelligence and grace. Photographs bring the witnesses and their surroundings vividly to life."
-David Chandler, author of A History of Cambodia and Facing the Cambodian Past
"On the eve of a judicial reckoning for the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, Soul Survivors provides a painfully human face to the Cambodian genocide. The book effectively demonstrates the political, economic, and psychological links between the destruction of Cambodian society carried out in the 1970s and the suffering experienced by so many Cambodians today."
-Susan E. Cook, Ph.D., Director, Cambodian Genocide Program, Yale Center for International and Area Studies
"The eloquence of their stories and the heartbreak they depict become ennobling because of the spirit that carries them. They are stories that have to be told, that have to be held up to the light of humanity. In their extraordinary way, Carol Wagner and Valentina DuBasky have entered the heart of sorrow to bring forth this spirit and let it speak to us."
-Jack Kornfield, Author and Buddhist Teacher, Spirit Rock Center
"Soul Survivors must awaken us to the horrors that humanity has perpetrated in the last century. It must arouse us from the complacency of doing nothing about the growing violence."
-Arun Gandhi, Founder and Director, M.K. Gandhi Institute of Nonviolence
Bio: CAROL WAGNER works with women's and humanitarian organizations in Cambodia, leads educational tours to SE Asia, and was a UN observer in Cambodia's last election. She is the former director of a center for non-violence located in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Carol Wagner is available for speaking engagements. For more information, contact her directly at tocarolwagner@hotmail.com. Sample talk description:
Soul Survivors in Cambodia
A beautiful slide presentation about the people of Cambodia and how they rebuilt their society following the genocide (1975-1979) and civil war. Author of Soul Survivors - Stories of Women and Children in Cambodia, Carol Wagner will discuss Cambodia today, including the international tribunal, women's issues, the landmine situation, and the Buddhist peace movement.
