In the Shadow of the Banyan discussion

In the novel, In the Shadow of the Banyan, a young Cambodian girl suffers in a movement that includes injustice and genocide. Ratner's unrelenting focus on love is what gives the book its heart, by the whole family having unbreakable bonds with one another. This book can give you hope, and it confirms the power of storytelling of the many lives that were lost throughout suffering and cruelty. The royal family soon gets swept up in all the chaos of the revolution and forced exodus. In the climate of systematic violence of sickness and justification for execution are a memory and all fight for survival. The young girl clings to her vestige childhood before all the bad that happened. She remembers the poetry she had learned from her father also incorporating myths and folktales of Cambodia's deep history. An amazing reign of terror that was witnessed personally by Ratner but fictionalized for the audience.