Graphic Novel Review: ‘Year of the Rabbit’
Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2020 5:21 pm
Graphic Novel Review: ‘Year of the Rabbit’ by Tian Veasna from Drawn+Quarterly
Jeff Provine 1 day ago
Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna from Drawn+Quarterly presents an especially poignant view of the Khmer Rouge by showing it through human eyes. Rather than giving a historical synopsis on political factions, Veasna’s story is told through the people who survived the nightmare that killed nearly two million people. As a number, this is staggering, but seeing the lives being lived adds to the haunting realism of one of the greatest tragedies in human history.
Veasna drafted Year of the Rabbit through interviews with family beginning in 1975 with the Khmer Rouge seizing Phnom Penh to the regime’s overthrow by the Vietnamese in 1979 and their adoptions of new lives abroad. There is the exception of his Aunt Chenda, whom Veasna describes in the denouement as having such pain in her loss that “she doesn’t want to hear about Cambodia anymore,” instead becoming fully Canadian with Country music and TV.
Adding together the details of the other survivors and historical context, Veasna begins the story with a doctor, soon to be his father upon Tian’s birth, rummaging through hospital cupboards to what supplies he would need for a baby’s delivery. He drives through a city where some crowds cheer the military parading through the streets and impromptu checkpoints with armed men trying to maintain some sort of order...
https://blogcritics.org/graphic-novel-r ... quarterly/
Jeff Provine 1 day ago
Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna from Drawn+Quarterly presents an especially poignant view of the Khmer Rouge by showing it through human eyes. Rather than giving a historical synopsis on political factions, Veasna’s story is told through the people who survived the nightmare that killed nearly two million people. As a number, this is staggering, but seeing the lives being lived adds to the haunting realism of one of the greatest tragedies in human history.
Veasna drafted Year of the Rabbit through interviews with family beginning in 1975 with the Khmer Rouge seizing Phnom Penh to the regime’s overthrow by the Vietnamese in 1979 and their adoptions of new lives abroad. There is the exception of his Aunt Chenda, whom Veasna describes in the denouement as having such pain in her loss that “she doesn’t want to hear about Cambodia anymore,” instead becoming fully Canadian with Country music and TV.
Adding together the details of the other survivors and historical context, Veasna begins the story with a doctor, soon to be his father upon Tian’s birth, rummaging through hospital cupboards to what supplies he would need for a baby’s delivery. He drives through a city where some crowds cheer the military parading through the streets and impromptu checkpoints with armed men trying to maintain some sort of order...
https://blogcritics.org/graphic-novel-r ... quarterly/