In the Shadow of the Banyan

The novel opens in Phnom Penh, where a seven-year-old girl of the royal family lives in comfort until, on 17 April 1975, the Khmer Rouge take the city and drive its whole population into the countryside at gunpoint. From there the map runs northwest, along the roads and rivers of the exodus into the rice provinces of Pursat and Battambang, where the family is broken apart by forced labour, hunger and killing. Ratner deliberately leaves her villages unnamed, so the rural points here mark the real region the deportations emptied into, not addresses the book supplies.

Raami

Phnom Penh

Part One

The story begins in the capital, where a young girl of the royal family lives a sheltered life of gardens and relatives. On 17 April 1975 the Khmer Rouge march into Phnom Penh and, within hours, order everyone out, emptying the city and beginning the four years that will scatter and destroy the family.

Part One

explicit The novel is set explicitly in Phnom Penh, where the family lives when the city falls; this marks the capital, sited on its historic centre by the river.

Google Maps ↗ Street View ↗

Raami

The road west, Kampong Chhnang

Part One

The evacuation becomes a slow march and river crossing away from the capital, the roads packed with families carrying what they could. The way northwest toward the rice provinces runs through Kampong Chhnang, on the great lake and the main road out of Phnom Penh, a real waypoint on the corridor the deportations followed.

Part One

inferred The book describes the forced journey out of the city but does not name the towns passed through; this marks Kampong Chhnang, the first province on National Road 5 and the Tonle Sap route northwest, as a representative point on the exodus.

Google Maps ↗ Street View ↗