Journalist Robert Carmichael’s new book When the Clouds Fell From the Sky follows Cambodian diplomat Ouk Ket into the S-21 torture and interrogation centre and details the devastating repercussions for his family in France and Cambodia

In 2009, Frenchwoman Martine Lefeuvre testified at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal where Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade Duch, was on trial for crimes against humanity, war crimes, homicide and torture.

In the witness box, Lefeuvre, who had only visited Cambodia once before in 1991, recalled her family’s three decades of suffering caused by Duch, who had signed her husband Ouk Ket’s death warrant at Phnom Penh’s S-21 prison on December 9, 1977.

“Ket’s suffering was and still is our suffering, and far from diminishing with time, I can tell you that the suffering is in fact more and more intense,” said Lefeuvre, adding that Ket was just one of 301 names on a death list authorised by Duch that day.

While S-21, also known as Tuol Sleng, has been the subject of many books about the Khmer Rouge, a new work by South African journalist Robert Carmichael, a former Phnom Penh Post managing editor, uses Ket and his family’s story to provide a fresh perspective on the harrowing site.

Combining extensive historical research and analysis with colourful narrative, When Clouds Fell From the Sky is arguably the most vivid and terrifying literary portrait of the prison to date.

The book begins with Ket’s return to Cambodia in June 1977 – a foreign diplomat posted at the Cambodian embassy in Senegal for the previous five years, he had received a letter from Phnom Penh requesting he come back to Cambodia “per the advice of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Democratic Kampuchea” to “get educated to better fulfill [his] responsibilities”.

Adamant that refugee reports trickling across the Thai border of murder and starvation were untrue, he departed for Beijing to catch the weekly flight to Phnom Penh – the country’s only formal link with the outside world.

prahkeitouj wrote:Did you buy it, Samouth?