SUBMITTED Image of Madeleine Thien
Madeleine Thien sheds some light on a dark period in Cambodian history with Dogs at the Perimeter
By: Quentin Mills-Fenn
Uptown Magazine
9th June, 2011
Madeleine Thien is just a little reluctant to discuss her new book.
Dogs at the Perimeter (McClelland & Stewart) is a novel that tackles one of the darkest times of the 20th century: the reign of terror of the Khmer Rouge. Uncounted numbers of people (a million? More?) died in the Cambodian genocide.
"I travel a lot," Thien says. "I spent a lot of time in that part of the world, circling Cambodia. I even stood in Thailand looking over the border. And I wasn’t even sure I wanted to write about the Cambodian genocide.
"It feels like a part of history that we pushed away, a moment of madness in that part of the world," she adds. "But it’s really a part of our history. It’s not that far removed from us.
"Cambodia is endlessly complex. And every preconception I had was soon smacked down."
Thien’s novel introduces us to Janie, a woman who seems to have made it; she’s got a husband, a child and a successful career in medical research. But she pushes that life aside.
Janie grew up in the killing fields of Cambodia. Orphaned, she escaped to Canada and was raised by foster parents.
"I have very strong memories of when the kids arrived," Thien says, "because I was a kid then, too.
"Most of them were Vietnamese, but there were a lot of Cambodians. And they were alone when they came to Canada. They didn’t have any family. And that stayed with me for a long time.
"Janie’s very successful at reinventing herself," she adds. "She seems very dependable, a good worker and mother. But, underlying all of it is the story of a girl coming of age in a dangerous time.
"When I was researching the Cambodian refugee camps, I read that the girls usually ended up in university and the boys usually ended up in prison."
Janie does research in neurology, an interest Thien shares.
"I’ve long been interested in neurology," Thien says. "I started reading about it about 10 years ago, after my mother died. It was kind of a consolation. I wanted to know what happened to thoughts and memories. What happens when we die but also what happens with the living? All we do, thinking, sitting here talking.
"And what happens to the things we don’t remember? The things that don’t get embedded?"
Finally, Thien explains the title she chose for a novel entirely without dogs.
"It’s about Janie living in Cambodia without her family," she says. "About guarding the things you love.
"I want readers to know what they’re in for when they open the book."
4 comments:
Yep, another foreign(Thai?,Veitnamese?) author is telling the horrible side story of Cambodia dark days from outside perspective for their own bookselling benifit. You should expect some ignorant and stereotypical statements to wow-up her book sale.
hello,
I had been wanting to comment on this post but was waiting for a response from the magazine (Uptown) that ran this interview. However, I feel compelled to respond to the anonymous comment above.
I am the author of Dogs at the Perimeter, the novel written about in this post. I have asked the magazine to take down this article because it is, unfortunately, full of errors and mis-quotes. The journalist did not digitally record the interview; he took notes by hand. In the process of writing up the interview, he seems to have pulled up snippets of phrases and then reconstructed the sentences, erasing all context. We spoke about the difficulties facing survivors and refugees; and then the interviewer *created* quotes.
I absolutely did not say 99% of the things he quoted me as saying, and was appalled and disturbed to see these lines attributed to me.
I have asked the magazine to take down the story until they are able to verify each quote that was used. I agree with Anonymous that the quotes are not only "ignorant and stereotypical" but rife with factual errors, not only about the novel itself, but about Cambodia.
Over the last five years, I have returned to Cambodia many times, spending months researching, interviewing, and writing. I'm very sorry for the views promulgated in this article; I wholeheartedly disagree with them.
Please feel free to write to me directly at dogsattheperimeter at gmail dot com
very best,
Madeleine Thien
Well, I see nothing wrong about this article. It is interesting and entertaining to read. I have not read Thien's novel, but I think she has done a good job in researching the subject to write her novel.
Thank you, Anonymous, and thank you Khmerization. Just to update you, the magazine has responded to my criticisms and has taken the article down.
warmest,
Madeleine
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