“These are the stories of survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime, but also survivors of war, of corrupt governments, of poverty, of hatred, of racism. It is in the details of their lives, as a teacher, a dancer, a doctor … that one finds great heroism. The book is important because it is about the best of what it means to be human.”
Dr. Judy Ledgerwood, Center for SE Asian Studies
Anthropology Department, Northern Illinois University
“An absorbing collection… fourteen resilient survivors tell their stories and endow their battered, courageous country, and the readers of this book, with some of their own energies, intelligence and grace. Photographs bring the witnesses and their surroundings vividly to life.”
David Chandler, Author of A History of Cambodia
and Facing the Cambodian Past
“The eloquence of their stories and the heartbreak they depict become ennobling because of the spirit that carries them. They are stories that have to be told, that have to be held up to the light of humanity. In their extraordinary way, Bhavia Wagner and Valentina DuBasky have entered the heart of sorrow to bring forth this spirit and let it speak to us.”
Jack Kornfield, Author and Buddhist Teacher,
Spirit Rock Center
“Soul Survivors provides a painfully human face to the Cambodian genocide. The book effectively demonstrates the political, economic, and psychological links between the destruction of Cambodian society carried out in the 1970s and the suffering experienced by so many Cambodians today.”
Susan E. Cook, Ph.D., Director,
Cambodian Genocide Program,
Yale Center for International and Area Studies
“Soul Survivors must awaken us to the horrors that humanity has perpetrated in the last century. It must arouse us from the complacency of doing nothing about the growing violence.”
Arun Gandhi, Founder and Director,
M.K. Gandhi Institute of Nonviolence