'To keep you is no benefit, to kill you is no loss'
During Pol Pot's regime of terror, between 1975 and 1979, one in four Cambodians, approximately two million people, died or were killed. More than 12,000 of these died in Tuol Sleng prison, better known today by its codename S-21. This is the story of Ouk Ket, a young Cambodian diplomat, recalled in 1977 'to get educated to better fulfil [his] responsibilities'. It is also the story of his French wife Martine and their daughter Neary and their quest to find out what had happened to him.
The crimes committed in Cambodia - inside S-21 and beyond its gates - provide a salutary lesson to us all.
'Crisply written, elegantly constructed and thoroughly researched, When the Clouds Fell from the Sky is a perceptive, often heart-breaking book.'
David Chandler, historian and author of Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison
'A beautifully written book that does a masterful job weaving the history of the Khmer Rouge tribunal with a more personal story of human tragedy and redemption. This extremely thoughtful work is the product of its author's deep understanding of Cambodia. Anyone trying to make sense of the Khmer Rouge war crimes court should read this timely book.'
Peter Maguire, author of Law and War, Facing Death in Cambodia and Thai Stick.
'Combining extensive historical research and analysis with colourful narrative, When the Clouds Fell from the Sky is arguably the most vivid and terrifying literary portrait of the prison to date.'
The Phnom Penh Post
'An outstanding book of astonishing power . . . One finishes it with an ache in the heart'
Jon Swain, writer and foreign correspondent, author of River of Time
'Like Auschwitz, like Stalin's purges, the mass murders of the Khmer Rouge are one of those extraordinary events that make us wonder about the human capacity for evil. Through a profoundly moving tale that weaves together the connected stories of a victim, his surviving family, and members of the regime, Robert Carmichael brings us into the heart of the darkness that took over Cambodia, bringing it alive in the way no mere statistics can. I've not seen a comparable book about these horrors.'
Adam Hochschild, award-winning author of King Leopold's Ghost
'What does it mean to say two million people lost their lives during the years of Khmer Rouge rule? The true answer can only be told in microcosm, as Robert Carmichael has done in this intimate and heartbreaking story of the disappearance of one man, and the decades of suffering that followed as his family searched for answers.'
Seth Mydans, former Southeast Asia correspondent for the New York Times
'As moving as it is well researched. Robert Carmichael's sharp prose and depth of knowledge of Cambodia's history transforms a daughter's search for her missing father into a nation's journey to find peace and reconciliation with its brutal history of genocide.'
Loung Ung, author of First They Killed My Father
During the Khmer Rouge's four-year reign of terror, two million people died in Cambodia. In describing one family's quest to learn their husband's and father's fate and the war crimes trial of Comrade Duch, who ran the notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, When the Clouds Fell from the Sky illuminates the tragedy of a nation.
Having been found responsible for the deaths of more than 12,000 people, Duch was the first Khmer Rouge member to be jailed for crimes committed during Pol Pot's catastrophic 1975-9 rule during which millions were executed or died from starvation, illness and overwork.
The Khmer Rouge closed Cambodia's borders, barred all communication with the outside world and sought to turn the clock back to Year Zero. They outlawed religion, markets, money, education and even the concept of family.
But the revolution soon imploded, driven to destruction by the incompetence and paranoia of the leadership. Like hundreds of others, when he returned in 1977, Ouk Ket was utterly unaware of the terrors being wrought in the revolution's name.
Carmichael has woven together the stories of five people whose lives intersected to traumatic effect: Duch; Ket's daughter, Neary, who was just two when her father disappeared; Ouk Ket himself; Ket's French wife, Martine; and Ket's cousin, Sady, who never left Cambodia and still lives there today.
Through these personal stories and months spent following Duch's trial, Carmichael extrapolates from the experience of one man to tell the story of a nation. In doing so, he reaffirms the value of the individual, countering the Khmer Rouge's nihilistic maxim that: 'To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss.'
