UID:
kobvindex_ZLB35222685
Edition:
Unabridged
ISBN:
9781668637029
Content:
" A haunting and beautiful memoir from a Cambodian refugee who lost her country and her family during Pol Pot's genocide in the 1970s but who finds hope by reclaiming the recipes she tasted in her mother's kitchen.Take a well-fed nine-year-old with a big family and a fancy education. Fold in 2 revolutions, 2 civil wars, and one wholesale extermination. Subtract a reliable source of food, life savings, and family members, until all are gone. Shave down childhood dreams for approximately two decades, until only subsistence remains. In Slow Noodles , Chantha Nguon recounts her life as a Cambodia refugee who lost everything and everyone8212 her house, her country, her parents, her siblings, her friends8212 everything but the memories of her mother's kitchen, the tastes and aromas of the foods her mother made before the dictator Pol Pot tore her country apart in the 1970s, killing millions of her compatriots. Nguon's irrepressible spirit and determination come through in this emotional and poignant but also lyrical and magical memoir that includes over 20 recipes for Khmer dishes like chicken lime soup, banh sung noodles , pâ,é,de foie, curries, spring rolls, and stir-fries. For Nguon, recreating these dishes becomes an act of resistance, of reclaiming her place in the world, of upholding the values the Khmer Rouge sought to destroy, and of honoring the memory of her beloved mother. From her idyllic early years in Battambang to hiding as a young girl in Phnom Penh as the country purges ethnic Vietnamese like Nguon and her family, from her escape to Saigon to the deaths of mother and sister there, from the poverty and devastation she experiences in a war-ravaged Vietnam to her decision to flee the country. We follow Chantha on a harrowing river crossing into Thailand8212 part of the exodus that gave rise to the name boat people8212 and her decades in a refugee camp there, until finally, denied passage to the West, she returns to a forever changed Cambodia. Nguon survives by cooking in a brothel, serving drinks in a nightclub, making and selling street food, becoming a suture-nurse treating refugees abused by Thai authorities, and weaving silk. Through it all, Nguon relies on her mother's slow noodles approach to healing and to cooking, one that prioritizes time and care over expediency. Haunting and evocative, Slow Noodles is a testament to the power of culinary heritage to spark the rebirth of a young woman's hopes for a beautiful life. I've never read a book that made me weep, wince, laugh out loud, and rejoice like Slow Noodles. In Chantha Nguon's harrowing, wise, and fiercely feminist memoir, cooking is a language8212 of love, remembrance, and rebellion8212 and stories are nourishment. 8212 Maggie Smith, New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful "
Content:
Rezension(1): "〈a href=http://lj.libraryjournal.com/ target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/libraryjournal_logo.png alt=Library Journal border=0 /〉〈/a〉: September 1, 2023 When Pol Pot ascended to power in Cambodia, killing millions, ethnic Vietnamese like Nguon's family were especially targeted. She escaped to Saigon with her mother and sister, who both died there, and spent decades in a Thai refugee camp until she was denied passage to the West and returned to Cambodia. Through numerous small jobs like serving drinks in a nightclub, she was sustained by one thing: the memories of her mother's cooking. Unfathomable loss, illuminated by 20 recipes,with a 20,000-copy first printing. Prepub Alert. Copyright 2023 Library JournalCopyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission. " Rezension(2): "〈a href=http://www.kirkusreviews.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/kirkus_logo.png alt=Kirkus border=0 /〉〈/a〉: November 1, 2023 In an evocative, haunting memoir, a survivor of Cambodia's Year Zero generation recounts how memories of her culinary heritage have sustained her. Some tragedies are almost too large to describe. One of history's most notorious was the genocide imposed by Pol Pot on Cambodia in the early 1970s, a project to destroy the societal structure and replace it with an agrarian society based on twisted Marxist principles. The murderers among us would have us believe that history is slippery and unknowable, she writes. Insisting otherwise is an act of defiance. Nguon and her family, half Vietnamese, were obvious targets, and they escaped to Saigon just in time for the arrival of the conquering North Vietnamese army. Nguon managed to scrape together a living with various jobs, although she often subsisted on small bowls of rice with some salt. Through the years of suffering and resilience, the author remembers the beautiful, subtle tastes of the Khmer dishes made by her mother, and she punctuates the book with recipes and the memories tied to them. Ngoun was shuffled between refugee camps before she was sent back to Cambodia, which was slowly emerging from chaos. Among other jobs, she worked as a cook for brothel workers, and she had the advantage of being literate and was good at making contacts. With the help of aid organizations, she was able to set up a center for helping Khmer women, teaching them silk weaving and providing literacy classes. Many parts of the text are heart-rendingly sad, but the author leavens the narrative with recipes for dishes like chicken lime soup and banh sung. Though the subject matter makes the book a sometimes difficult read, those who dive in will find it a remarkable and important piece of work. A moving book that mixes horror and hope, disaster and good food, creating a poignant, fascinating read. COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. " Rezension(3): "〈a href=http://www.publishersweekly.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/pw_logo.png alt=Publisher's Weekly border=0 /〉〈/a〉: January 8, 2024 In this engrossing and evocative debut memoir, Nguon recounts how her mother’s recipes sustained her family through poverty and genocidal violence. Raised in a middle-class, half Vietnamese family in Battambang, Cambodia, in the 1960s, Nguon learned to cook Khmer food by shadowing her mother, whom she affectionately called “Mae.” In 1970, as the Vietnam War spilled over Cambodia’s borders and communist revolutionary Pol Pot began his rise to power, Nguon and her siblings fled to Saigon, leaving their mother and oldest brother behind to “sort out the family’s affairs.” Five years later, after the death of her mother and most of her siblings, Nguon escaped Saigon with her boyfriend, Chan, and bounced around various refugee camps in Thailand, where she worked as bartender, brothel cook, medical assistant, and silkweaver. Eventually, Nguon returned to Cambodia to open the Stung Treng Women’s Development Center, where she continues to provide food and education to Khmer women. Throughout, Nguon interweaves the hardships she endured with her favorite recipes and the memories attached to them, offering readers evocative glimpses of the bursts of light that sustained her through long stretches of harrowing darkness. This haunting yet hopeful account will appeal to foodies and history buffs alike. Agent: Joy Tutela, David Black Literary. " Rezension(4): "〈a href=https://www.booklistonline.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/booklist_logo.png alt=Booklist border=0 /〉〈/a〉: January 1, 2024 From fleeing the Khmer Rouge to surviving war-torn Saigon and enduring Thai refugee camps, Chantha Nguon's memoir-with-recipes serves diverse plates of resilience set against inconceivable human suffering. Demonstrating an exceptional sensitivity to the cultural, social, and political significance of food, Nguon extends cooking metaphors across documentations of war, poverty, sexual exploitation, and authoritative terror--a fearless invitation for readers to taste the pain of families torn apart and futures broken down. Alongside this narrative of losses, Nguon whisks genres to include recipes for remaking her family's dishes and surviving traumatic moments, providing an unforgettable, tactile intimacy between writer and reader. A survivor, witness, and cofounder of the Cambodian Stung Treng Women's Development Center, Nguon details others' suffering--particularly that of women forced into prostitution--with empathy, creating a long-term recipe for resilience, coined Slow Noodles logic, that foregrounds self-sufficiency. With hunger for gender equality and attention to class differences, this memoir is also a redemptive homecoming to parts of Cambodian history still fresh in many minds and a meditation on the beginnings of a new Cambodia. COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. " Rezension(5): "〈a href=http://www.audiofilemagazine.com target=_blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/audiofile_logo.jpg alt=AudioFile Magazine border=0 /〉〈/a〉:Clara Kim narrates her mother's memoir. The initial chapters describe Nguon's early years in Cambodia, which were filled with the abundance of her mother's gifted cooking and the love of her older siblings. Interspersed are joyfully remembered recipes. Sadly, Kim's narration fails to capture the elegance of this memoir's language. Later, when Pol Pot's genocide necessitates Nguon's dramatic departure to Vietnam without her mother, Kim's plodding pacing and flat tone don't reflect the horrors of the refugee experience with its omnipresent poverty and death. Returning to a decimated Cambodia, Nguon recovers from the trauma of her experiences by following her mother's philosophy on slow noodles to rebuild her life. If only the narration of this audiobook were more skillful. S.W. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine" Rezension(6): "〈a href=http://lj.libraryjournal.com/ target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/libraryjournal_logo.png alt=Library Journal border=0 /〉〈/a〉: April 1, 2024 Activist Nguon, assisted by writer and public radio producer Kim Green, offers a fierce debut memoir, recounting the hunger, insecurity, and loss she experienced after Pol Pot's ascension to power. Nguon, the daughter of a Cambodian father and a Vietnamese mother, grew up in Battambang, Cambodia, living comfortably until the 1970s, when Cambodia became increasingly unsafe for people of Vietnamese descent. Forced to flee to Saigon in 1975, Nguon lost her mother and siblings, her home, and her livelihood. Later, she spent years in Thai refugee camps before returning to Cambodia and opening a center to support Khmer women, by providing education, medical care, and job training. Throughout unthinkable hardships, Nguon was sustained by memories of family recipes, 20 of which are recorded here. Nguon's daughter, Clara Kim, narrates her mother's story with a measured, lyrical tone that perfectly matches the author's words. Kim skillfully conveys Nguon's range of emotions, many of which are tied to the recipes she shares--wistful delight at remembering her mother's fish amok, pointed reproach in her recipe for Go-Home Rice, and the exquisite relief of tasting a simple Cambodian noodle soup. VERDICT A gracefully told portrait of resilience, enhanced with recipes that are both mouthwatering and evocative. --Sarah HashimotoCopyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission. " Rezension(7): "〈a href=http://lj.libraryjournal.com/ target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/libraryjournal_logo.png alt=Library Journal border=0 /〉〈/a〉: Starred review from March 29, 2024 Cambodian activist Nguon, assisted by writer and public radio producer Green, shares her family recipes as she reflects on the grief, hunger, and rootlessness she experienced after Pol Pot's ascension to power. Though Nguon, the daughter of a Cambodian father and a Vietnamese mother, enjoyed a relatively prosperous early childhood, her family's peace was shattered by racially motivated violence, which intensified and forced them to flee to Saigon in 1975. In the ensuing years, she experienced the crushing deaths of her mother and siblings, the terror of living under North Vietnamese rule, and despair at losing her home and livelihood. She later left Vietnam, spending years in Thai refugee camps, only to be unceremoniously returned to Cambodia. Even then, Nguon survived and eventually opened a center to provide Khmer women with employment, job training, and medical care. Throughout this time, she was sustained by memories of her family's recipes, which embodied the love, ha
Content:
ard work, and resilience of her family and her community. Balancing bitter and sweet, her recipes and their names range from humorous (Silken Rebellion Fish Fry) to touching (Banh Sung of Forgiveness). VERDICT A stunning memoir, spiced with delectable and occasionally devastating recipes. This is unmissable. --Sarah HashimotoCopyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission. "
Language:
English
Keywords:
Hörbuch
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