The Unconquered Country

The Unconquered People get conquered by their Neighbours, who take away their 'living house' green technology and herd them into the city, where their lives and culture progressively decay as they descend into selling themselves, their body parts and renting their wombs. The Big Men, who gave the Neighbours their weapons, then change their minds and give weapons to Rebels from the Unconquered people, who are just as bad as the Neighbours and complete the destruction by forcing the remains of the Unconquered People out of the city, to a certain doom. All this is seen through the eyes of Third, a third daughter, who declines into madness once her 'husband' is killed by a bio-weapon and she adopts a talking Crow. A painful story which show more burns with indignation. show less

A poetic and deeply personal view of Cambodian history during the Khmer Rouge regime, set in a slightly fantastical/metaphoric universe, told through the eyes of Third Daughter. Absolutely heartrending.

The best thing about this book is that it is short. So short, in fact, that it didn't even last me a whole day's worth of commuting on the bus. This is supposedly a fantastical version of the relatively recent history of Cambodia. Yes, this was a bad time in history so you might expect this to be an unpleasant story, but everything was made worse here. I found this to be deeply disturbing and unsettling. I don't even want to describe the grossness in this story. I spent the whole book thinking "Ugh!" and counting how many pages were left until I was done. If I had had anything else with me to entertain me on the bus, I might not have finished this book.

Cuando Tercera era una niña pequeña, vivía en una pacífica aldea en el armónico País Irredento. Hasta que lo invadieron los vecinos y los tiburones bajaron de los cielos dejando grandes surcos quemados de destrucción. Pronto, con la familia de Tercera muerta y su amada aldea destruida, la muchacha marchó para intentar sobrevivir sola en una sociedad nueva e incomprensible.