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Crossing Three Wildernesses
Reviews
Minneapolis Star Tribune:
"[Oeur] embodied everything the Khmer Rouge regime was trying violently and inhumanly to eradicate. Half of his extended family was lost in those four years, but Oeur somehow managed to survive. The compelling account of his life makes for a window into the human experience underneath a story that often is told in terms of incomprehensible statistics."
Publishers Weekly :
"Taking readers into the heart of Cambodian culture with this compelling litany of triumphs and terrors, poet Oeur recalls his life as an adroit survivor. . . . This sensitive summary of his nomadic life resonates with passion, poignancy and self-insight."
Dith Pran:
"U Sam Oeur's book depicts the Pol Pot era in a new light. Oeur was born in the rice paddies and rose to a position of influence in the government. His book is about the customs and beliefs of every day Cambodian life. He was sustained by his belief in the democratic ideals he learned while studying in the United States. His book takes the reader from the end of the French Colonial period through Prince Sihanouk's efforts to introduce democratic reform. He explores the failure of the Khmer Republic and the struggle for power after Pol Pot was overthrown. Reading his book is like being there. It is a mixture of Buddhism and democracy. I am very proud of his effort to make the struggles of our country understandable."
Bruce Weigl, author of The Circle of Hanh :
"U Sam Oeur's memoir is more than the history of one man's remarkable life and his struggle to survive the most impossible circumstances perhaps ever contrived. Because we, as Americans, are inextricably bound to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, this book is also a history of all our lives. Meticulously honest and clearheaded in that dharmic way, Crossing Three Wildernesses will surely take its place among those books we must read to understand what it means to be fully who we are. This is a truly brave story, shaped and fine-tuned into an engaging and ultimately moving book."
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