grief and self-pity in America, becomes more and
more comfortable in his home country, where he is
clearly needed. As a university professor, his work
in America is abstract and impersonal. In Iran, by
the end of the novel, he finds more fulfilling work
reconstructing villages bombed heavily during the
Iraq-Iran War. Karim settles into a rewarding life in
Iran although he writes his wife consistently talk-
ing of reuniting with her and Darius, their son. In
the end, despite their desire for each other’s com-
pany, both Jennifer and Karim seem to have made
peace to live their separate lives, one in America
and the other in Iran.
Zohra SaedHim, Chanrithy (1965– )
Born in Takeo Province, Cambodia, Chanrithy
Him fled with her family to the countryside when
the Khmer Rouge defeated the Lol Nol army and
entered Phnom Penh in 1975. Since her father,
Atidsim Him, was a government bureaucrat dur-
ing the post-independence Lol Nol era, her fam-
ily had to live in hiding to avoid persecution by
the Khmer Rouge. After just two weeks of hiding
in Chanrithy’s grandfather’s house, however, her
father and two uncles were taken away in an ox-
cart by the Khmer Rouge cadres for an orientation
meeting, never to be seen again. While the rest of
the family was relocated several times, the children
were separated and sent to different labor camps.
Approximately 1.7 million to 2 million Cambodi-
ans (20 percent of the population) lost their lives
to execution, forced labor, starvation, and sickness
under the Khmer Rouge regime. In her family of
10, only five survived the killing fields; Him lost
both parents and three siblings.
In 1979, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia,
Him and her remaining siblings fled with other
survivors to refugee camps at the Thai border,
where she wrote to her uncle in the United States.
In 1981, 16-year-old Him and her family settled
in Oregon. As interpreter, Him worked for 12
years on the Khmer Adolescent Project, a federally
funded study on post-traumatic stress of Cambo-
dian youths who grew up under the Khmer Rouge
regime. In 1991 she graduated from the Univer-
sity of Oregon with a B.S.; in 1995 she postponed
medical school to write her memoir. When her
memoir, When Broken Glass Floats: Growing up
under the Khmer Rouge, was published by Norton
in 2000, it became, along with LOUNG UNG’s First
They Killed My Father: a Daughter of Cambodia
Remembers (2000), one of the only two Cambo-
dian-American memoirs to date by women who
grew up during the Khmer Rouge regime.
When Broken Glass Floats won an Oregon Book
Award in 2001 amid controversy over its author-
ship. In 1994 Kimber Williams, a reporter for the
Register-Guard in Eugene, Oregon, wrote an ar-
ticle about Him. The two met again when Him ap-
proached Williams for assistance with her memoir.
After the publication of When Broken Glass Floats,
Williams accused Him of not crediting her contri-
bution to the work. The case was resolved when
Williams signed a legal statement relinquishing
future claims to the book.
When Broken Glass Floats is written in the pres-
ent tense and from a child’s point of view, creating
a sense of immediacy and intimacy. The memoir
describes events that happened during the Khmer
Rouge regime, when Him was between nine and
13 years of age. Him uses family pictures and
drawings, along with maps and family trees, to
document her family history. At one point, she
even transcribes and translates her sister’s poetry,
giving voice to her dead sister, Chea. Interestingly,
Him interjects newspaper articles into her personal
narrative, creating a dynamic tension between of-
ficial and unofficial histories, public records and
personal testimonies.
As testimonial literature, When Broken Glass
Floats is dedicated to Him’s family members as
well as other Cambodians who perished in the
killing fields. Him introduces the memoir with her
poem, “Please Give Us Voice,” in which the voices
of the dead plead with the living for justice: “Please
remember us. Please speak for us. Please bring us
justice.” Other themes include writing and healing,
the spirit of survival, oppression and resistance,
history, politics, and literature. Chanrithy HimHim, Chanrithy 105