Vannary Imam was born in Cambodia, a country the world remembers most for its killing fields. Yet she grew up knowing peace and always believed it would last. The child of a senior government bureaucrat, hers would normally have been a privileged existence but as a child of one Vietnamese and one Cambodian parent, life for Vannary Imam was never going to be simple. While the Vietnamese war was raging next door, old folks spoke about a day when so much Cambodian blood would be shed that it would flood the foot of the hill on which Phnom Penh sat. Neither Vannary nor the nearly two million people who died were to know then that real political forces were moving to transform this prediction into a cruel and bitter reality.
'When Elephants Fight' is an intricate weaving of family history, national politics and the powerful story of an extraordinary woman who forges a new life for herself out of the carnage of the killing fields.
