[by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]¸ü¶àÌýÁ¦Çë·ÃÎÊ51VOA.COM [00:01.88]Sometimes writing a fictional work [00:05.56]can help the writer deal with painful trauma. [00:10.26]That was Variny Yim's experience [00:13.92]when she wrote her first novel, The Immigrant Princess. [00:19.32]Yim is Cambodian-American. [00:23.60]Her book tells about three generations of women [00:28.40]from Cambodia's ruling family [00:31.36]who try to rebuild their lives in the United States. [00:36.88]However, it was Yim's father [00:40.40]who became central to her while writing the novel. [00:45.12]"I only have a few memories of my father [00:49.64]and one of the most heartbreaking memories for me [00:53.92]is the day that we left Cambodia. [00:58.32]He had taken us to the airport," she said. [01:02.56]"I was too young to understand what was happening, [01:07.36]and I remember walking up the stairs to the airplane [01:11.76]and looking back on the tarmac and my father waived at us. [01:17.88]What I didn't realize was that would be the last time [01:22.24]that I would ever see my father's face." [01:26.40]Variny Yim, her sister and her grandparents [01:31.20]escaped before the Cambodian genocide. [01:35.44]Her father, who stayed in Cambodia to care for aging parents, [01:41.32]was a victim of it. [01:43.64]Over four years, supporters of the Khmer Rouge [01:48.56]killed about two million people. [01:52.04]Yim and her family joined her mother, [01:55.36]who was studying in the United States. [01:59.52]Yim said they owe their lives to her grandfather, [02:04.08]who made sure they left Cambodia. [02:08.08]They were all members of Cambodia's royal family. [02:12.80]Yim's mother was a princess in Cambodia, [02:17.16]but in the United States she was just another refugee. [02:22.80]Her family had to change their expectations about life. [02:28.44]They had no money, [02:30.28]and their position meant almost nothing in the United States, Yim explained. [02:36.68]She added that her family tried to keep their royal identity close to themselves. [02:44.96]They did not tell many people about who they were. [02:49.60]As a young girl in the U.S., Yim said, [02:54.08]the Cambodian genocide seemed very far away. [02:59.40]She did not think about what it meant [03:03.20]that her father might have been killed with many other Cambodians. [03:09.80]This changed when she started researching Cambodian history [03:15.16]while writing her book. [03:17.36]The details of her father's death had always been a mystery [03:23.84]-- a mystery she solved while doing research for the book. [03:29.28]Her research led her to Cornell University in New York. [03:34.76]The university has records of the statements [03:39.28]given by the Khmer Rouge's victims at Tuol Sleng prison. [03:45.08]Those held there were questioned, tortured, and killed. [03:51.88]According to some estimates, [03:54.76]14,000 people entered the prison. [03:58.88]Only a small number of these people survived. [04:03.44]In Cornell's archive of confessions [04:07.08]was proof of what happened to Yim's father during the genocide. [04:12.40]"One of the hardest days of my life [04:16.12]was when I got an email from Cornell [04:19.60]confirming that they had found my father's name and confession," said Yim. [04:26.28]"It was finally wonderful to know the truth. [04:31.28]The truth really sets you free, even if it was painful." [04:36.80]Guided by the memory of the family she had lost, [04:42.24]Yim said she needed to write The Immigrant Princess to face the past. [04:49.64]She also wanted to remember the beauty in Cambodian culture. [04:55.24]Yim explained that her novel shows universal themes [05:00.40]about identity and reinvention. [05:04.12]She said the book is about how a person survives a traumatic loss. [05:11.44]"You can be brutal and you can bring terror [05:14.96]and you can become a dictator [05:17.88]but that's not going to kill the human spirit [05:21.40]and that's what I want my book to show," Yim said. [05:25.84]Yim added that she wrote the book for her children [05:31.00]so they will know what happened. [05:33.76]She also wrote the book for Cambodians, [05:37.47]so that they will know that the genocide may have left a scar [05:42.92]but does define them as a people. [05:46.84]I'm John Russell.