Three Women of Chuck’s Donuts - A Short Story by Anthony Veasna So - first published February 10, 2020 in The New Yorker - this is the lead story in his collection Afterparties - 2021

 Died: December 8, 2020 (aged 28); San Francisco, California, U.S

Born: February 20, 1992; Stockton, California, U.S

“Anthony Veasna So was, in his own words, “a queer boy, a Khmer-American son of former refugees, a failed computer scientist, a grotesque parody of the model minority, and a graduate of Stanford University.” …

Before he passed in December of 2020, Anthony sold his debut short story collection Afterparties, which has been hailed as “a wildly energetic, heartfelt, original debut” (George Saunders) and “a stunning collection by an exciting new voice” (Brit Bennett). Like all his work, it is hilarious, exquisitely detailed, and unbelievably complex in its exploration of the lives of Khmer, queer characters.”from The Adroit Journal

The death of Anthony Veasna So at age 28 is just too sad for words.  His stories focused on Cambodian refugees and their American born children, living in California.  The stereotype is that Asian Americans are the “perfect minority”., with way lower crime and welfare than white Americans.  Americans see all S E Asians as one monolithic group. So’s stories,as illustrated by “The Three Women of Chuck’s Donuts”  let us see beyond this to real people. Cambodians suffered terribly Under The rule of The Khmer Rouge and The intense bombing of The country by America.  About a third of The people lost their lives. Even when they made it to America they and their children had to deal with The psychological consequences of this.  Trust is not easily given to others.  Women cannot count on The father’s of their children to be there for them.  Children tell themselves their father survived the Killing Fields and made it to America and they try to accept them even when they abandon the family.

The donut shop is run by a divorced Cambodian woman and her American born daughters 13 and 16.  There is no Chuck, it just seemed like an American name.  It is summer and the girls are working the night shift (24 hours).  A man who appears Khmer starts coming in late at night.  He gets an apple strudel but never touches it.  Of course the girls wonder about him.  We learn How the purchase of the shop was financed by a sinister figure back in Cambodia, an uncle of her ex-husband.   The woman has been giving money to her ex-husband to send to him but he spent it on his new family.  She fears what can happen due to this.

The girls get to know the man.  We learn his history and then something very shocking happens.

I read this story on the Kindle sample edition.  I hope so much I get to read the full collection soon

Out of the Ruins by Sue Guiney (2014, Ward Wood Publishing)

Out of the Ruins is the second novel, both set in Cambodia, by Sue Guiney I have had the pleasure of reading.  Here is part of what I said about the first of her novels, Clash of Innocents:

A Clash of innocents is a beautifully written, heart warming very insightful story centering on the lives of a sixty year old woman from Ohio running an orphanage in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a volunteer, Amanda, with a mysterious past, an Australian mine sweeper, and a wonderfully realized cast of children plus a few other fascinating persons.

I would not really call Out of the Ruins a sequel to Clash of  Innocents but several of the people we got to know and like in Guiney's first novel are back.  The orphanage director, Kyle the Australian, and several of the children, grown a bit older delightfully return.  The story centers on a women's free health center volunteer doctors  start up in Siem Reap, Cambodia.  There are really three important new characters, two are doctors volunteering their time and one is a clinic director.  I said before, it is often a restless spirit or a deep sadness with your own culture that takes people from first world comfort and even luxury to move, even for a while, to the third world.  Part of the mystery and intrigue of Out of the Ruins, is seeing this emerge.  One of the doctor's has a terrible secret and the other finds love  where they never expected it.  We also see the different and shifting expectations the people in the novel have of each other and the ways very different cultural backgrounds shape expectations.

It was a lot of fun to see the shaky start of the clinic, especially to see how one of the late teenage girls from the orphanage helped get the first patients by almost dragging pregnant women in off the streets.  Guiney is very good at letting us see how their circumstances cause the characters's to develop.  

There is romance, excitement, medical emergencies and scenes of the dark side of Cambodia, child prostitution in Out of the Ruins.  At first the ending shocked me but then I started to think about it and it made sense.  

I greatly enjoyed this book and hope to read numerous more novels by Sue Guiney.  

You can learn more about Sue and her writing work shops with at risk children in Cambodia on her web page

http://sueguiney.com/

I have posted  twenty stories and poems by students from her workshop and hope to post more.

From the publisher's web page

Out of the Ruins begins with one Cambodian doctor’s frustration over how the poor women in his country are dying needlessly. He reaches out to friends to help him create a new clinic for the local villages around Siem Reap’s world famous temples, and they answer his call.

Irish Dr Diarmuid arrives with his English assistant, Dr Gemma, and Canadian administrator Mr Fred. Together they create a place where the poor women of Cambodia can find the basic care that so much of the world has long since taken for granted.

The young and ambitious Cambodian nurse Srey acts as interpreter and doorway into the trust of the local community, but her idealised view of western medicine will be seriously shaken.

Tradition collides with science as East meets West, and though the doctors are all too eager to help, they have much to learn about their own personal demons in this desperate and seductive society.

Reviews for Sue Guiney’s first Cambodian novel A Clash of Innocents

Writer Sue Guiney finds beauty in the most desperate situations.

The Bangkok Post

You’ll want to read this book if you’ve been to Cambodia – you’ll understand a lot that you didn’t at the time. And you’ll want to read it if you’ve never been and never will. It’s just a story very well told.

John Burgess, author of A Woman of Angkor

A wonderful haunting novel that now rates as one of my favourites.

Lynda Renham, bestselling author of Pink Wellies and Flat Caps

This is a story that will grip you, with its very real and flawed protagonists and fascinating setting. I read the book straight through, I was utterly absorbed.

Tania Hershman, author of My Mother is an Upright Piano

Biography

Sue has lived in London for nearly twenty years where she writes and teaches fiction, poetry and plays. Her work has appeared in important literary journals on both sides of the Atlantic, and her first book, published by Bluechrome Publishing in 2006, is the text of her poetry play, Dreams of May and has now been relaunched by Ward Wood. which premiered in London’s Pentameters Theatre. Ward Wood has also publish her poetry collection Her Life Collected and her first Cambodian novel A Clash of Innocents

Expect to see much more of Sue Guiney on The Reading Life

Mel u

A Clash of Innocents by Sue Guiney (2010, 256 pages, Ward Wood Publishing).

.

A Clash of innocents is a beautifully written, heart warming very insightful story centering on the lives of a sixty year old woman from Ohio running an orphanage in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a volunteer, Amanda, with a mysterious past, an Australian mine sweeper, and a wonderfully realized cast of children plus a few other fascinating persons.

I have learned from reading and life that there are deep seated reasons that drive people from their western homeland to third or second world countries.  The working out of this was one of several things that fascinated me about Clash of Innocents.  Oscar Wilde famously said he never really felt Irish until he moved to London.  Citizens of colonial countries know that those who leave their home to move to a third world country, for the best or the worst of reasons, are often escaping from a trauma or a hatred of their home land.  No perfectly adjusted happy westerner gives up her or his comforts without a very powerful personal reason, often one they do not fully understand.  Many seek an answer to their differences from "normal" people at home in a place where people don't judge them by the old standards.  We see this for sure in the very troubled Amanda who shows up one day to volunteer.  Deborah knows lots of westerns, often Americans, show up to volunteer for a few days to score Karmic points or assuage feelings of guilt knowing the terrible suffering that America helped bring down on the people of Cambodia.  She has learned to just let the volunteers do simple things, let them donate, but not to count on them.  Amanda is different and soon becomes very much a part of life in the center.  

There is a lot of perfectly done dialogue in Clash of Innocents.  We learn a lot about life in Cambodia.  We get to know and care about the children in the home.  When Deborah's adopted daughter ponders whether or not she should go to Kent State University in Ohio, on a full scholarship, 

where Deborah graduated at the time of the Kent State Killing of students by the National Guard (1970) I was captivated waiting to see what will happen.  We also see Deborah's division when her daughter passes from adolescent to attractive young woman and feels any mother's worry and happiness. 

Guiney paints a marvelous portrait of the Cambodian countryside on a beach trip.  Her descriptions of food made me hungry.  This passage motivated me to look at my Lonely Planet Guide to Cambodia:

From this passage you can see for your self the marvelous prose style of the author. 

There is romance, tragedy, lots of good times and festivals in this work as well as fascinating minor characters.  

I was very glad to have read Clash of Innocents and I think most readers would feel the same way.

.   

I first got to know Sue when we talked about posting on The Reading Life  a series of twenty poems and short stories by children being helped by The Anjali House in Siem Reap, Cambodia.  This turned out to be one of the things I am most proud of in my 4.5 years of blogging.  

Master Link to All Project Related Posts

Sue Guiney's Introductory Post  -Project Director - contains important links 

My Overview of the Project

My Q and A with Dana Hui Lim author of Mother and the Tiger- A Memoir of the Killing Fields. - essential background information -also contains a link to my review of her superb book.

I am really looking forward to reading Sue's next book, also set in Cambodia, Out of the Ruins.

You can learn a lot more about Sue and her work on her blog

http://sueguiney.com/blog/

shauna Gilligan has just done a very interesting interview with Sue

http://shaunaswriting.com/wordpress/2014/01/out-of-the-ruins-sue-guiney-on-her-latest-novel/

Mel u

"Cambodia" by Alan Patrick Traynor - A wonderful poem in observation of The Anjali House Writing Project - Siem Reap, Cambodia

Recently I had the great honor of publishing 20 poems and short stories by children from Siem Reap Cambodia.  I was very moved by these works.  I shared the stories and poems with my good friend Alan Patrick Traynor, author of Seven Days of Ashes, an amazing collection of Holocaust poems.  As we chatted about the works of Anjali House Project works I asked Alan if he could honor the project with a specially commissioned poem.  Alan is one of Ireland's leading poets.  Here is an extract from my post on his book

  Traynor's collection is a hymn to the victims of the Holocaust that costs the lives of around six million Jews and one half a million Gypsies. He powerfully mourns lost lives.  These poems scream, they transcend trivial rationality. They are not hand ringing TV documentaries. They force us to see the killer and the victim in ourselves.  They are about huge cultural losses, poems never written, diseases never cured, paintings never realized.  Behind a smiling cleric   you can see a Mayan priest.  The holocaust is not over.  Just open your eyes, Traynor will help you do that.   

There are seven poems in this very intense collection.  All focus on the Holocaust.   I read each poem several times and in different places.  

"Seven Days of Ashes" is the title work in the collection.   It is told from inside the ovens, from the top of a Central American pyramid six hundred years ago, from a Cambodian work camp, from a luxury resort for leaders of the European Union pondering austerity measures and scanning pics of 1000 Euro an hour hookers on their mobiles, maybe the Irish WW Two era leaders who looked up Hitler as a friend should leave the room while this is read, maybe C. K. Chesterton will explain "I just liked the uniforms".   Day 1 is murder, it was just an order.  This makes me think why do murderous ideologues love order, not just orders.  I want you to read these lines:

"I am the skeleton mother, 

A voice that reads the grave,

The borrowed sharpened flint,

We are the beautiful, the horrific beauty 

And we are dead".

This poem is already so compressed it is near possible and it would be a travesty to paraphrase it.  There is no answers for the questions this poem brings forth.

Sue Guiney's Introductory Post  -Project Director - contains important links 

My Overview of the Project

My Q and A with Dana Hui Lim author of Mother and the Tiger- A Memoir of the Killing Fields. - essential background information -also contains a link to my review of her superb book

"CAMBODIA"

By Alan Patrick Traynor

 

Glory

When I caught you
I was afraid
So I quickly killed you

Like a wild animal
The iron arm
Struck

 

It came

An unusual word
Valgus
Vainglory day

Fierce is the sky
That ends a child
Fierce the harpoon's look dismayed

Glory 

When you died
The grass was black
But we are not the same

One leg holds me up



by Alan Patrick Traynor
        ©August 15th 
               2013

Biography:

Alan Patrick Traynor is a Poet from Dublin Ireland.  He is the author of SEVEN DAYS OF ASHES, a poetry book written on the spirit of the Holocaust.

It has been said that his poetry is the mystical galvanic paint that sets the fields of Provence on fire.  It shocks the eyes and the soul at once!

Alan has been featured in Literary Journals worldwide, and is greatly respected amongst his peers.  "Edit not my soul” and "Edit not blood" are two of his own phrases that describe him best.

 

"Advice of Mother" by Paula - From The Anjali House Writing Project. - Siem Reap, Cambodia

Paula, like all the work shop participants, is just starting to learn English. Unlike European languages, the structure and grammer of the Khmer language does not share Latin roots with English, making it very hard to master. The two languages do not even share a common alphabet and Khmer is written from left to right.

The Advice of Mother

 by Paula

 

   One year, there was a girl called Neat. She was 15 years old. She lived in Phnom Penh. She studied at Grade 8. One day shewants to travel to Angkor Wat but her mother and father said to her, “This month your school does not have a holiday.”

   Neat said, “I don’t want to study anymore!”

   Her mother said, “Why do you say this? Knowledge can help you to have a wonderful life. You know that.” But she did not listen to her mother.

   Eight years later she became an adult and she wanted to work, but no one wants her to work because she doesn’t have the knowledge. She went back home and said to her mother, “Sorry,Mum, that I said that bad word to you but now I know knowledge can help. We all want to have wonderful days!”

 

 

 

Paula, age 15 (as required by Cambodian regulations, all writers are using Pen Names)

 

   When I was 13 years old I was very very happy because I was going to Phnom Penh with my parents. When I arrived there I met my uncle, my aunt, my grandfather, my brother and my sister.

   One day we went to Dreamland, the place where you could play with anything. We were very very happy because we could play, we could eat and we met a new friend too. I was so very happy then with my family.

Mel u

"When Problems Happen" by Victoria - From The Anjali House Writing Project. Siem Reap, Cambodia

Master Link to All Project Related Posts

Sue Guiney's Introductory Post  -Project Director - contains important links 

My Overview of the Project

My Q and A with Dana Hui Lim author of Mother and the Tiger- A Memoir of the Killing Fields. - essential background information

Victoria, like all the work shop participants, is just starting to learn English. Unlike European languages, the structure and grammer of the Khmer language does not share Latin roots with English, making it very hard to master. The two languages do not even share a common alphabet and Khmer is written from left to right.

My thanks to Victoria (a pen name as required under Cambodian privacy regulations)

for allowing me to publish this very interesting well written poem.

"When Problems Happen"

 by Victoria

 

In my dream I want to travel around the world.

When I see bad things happen to people

I want to help, too, but I don’t know who they are.

 

When I look to the sky

I see the bird fly in the sky.

I want to fly, too, but I don’t have a wing to fly.

 

I want to touch the sky,

but I can’t touch the sky,

because the sky is very high.

 

I feel unhappy because there is a flood in a country.

I want to help the people.

When their trouble is over I will help them to build a house.

 

 

 

 

Victoria, age 12 

 

One day at Khmer school I had a test. I did some tests and some I didn’t. One week after that, my teacher checked the tests.Some tests had good scores, some had bad scores. Then the next week my teacher gave the student record book and I saw that I had a good score. I had passed my exam. I took the student record book to give to my mother to see it. My mother was very happy and I was very happy too.

Mel u

"Boyfriend and Girlfriend" by Chara. From The Anjali House Writing Project, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Master Link to All Project Related Posts

Sue Guiney's Introductory Post  -Project Director - contains important links 

My Overview of the Project

My Q and A with Dana Hui Lim author of Mother and the Tiger- A Memoir of the Killing Fields. - essential background information

Chara, like all the work shop participants, is just starting to learn English. Unlike European languages, the structure and grammer of the Khmer language does not share Latin roots with English, making it very hard to master. The two languages do not even share a common alphabet and Khmer is written from left to right.

My thanks to Chara (a pen name as required under Cambodian privacy regulations)

for allowing me to publish this very interesting well written story.

Boyfriend and Girlfriend

 by Chara

 

   One day I went to play football with my friends. One friend asked me, “Hey! What is your name?”

   I answered him, “Hey! My name is Linda and what is your name?”

   He told me, “My name is Rattanak. I’m 16 years old. I have one brother and two sisters. My brother is a very handsome boy. His name is Rattana and my younger sisters are very pretty girls. One girl is called Sophy and another girl is called Rina. I have one mother and one father. My father is a policeman. My mother is a housewife.” Rattanak asked me, “And how old are you? How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

   My answer is “I’m 16 years old, too. I have one brother and two sisters. One of my sisters is called Linna and another is called Linra and the one brother is called Sokunty.”

   When they were asking to know about their brothers and sisters they were very happy. Linda and Rattanak were students who studied in one class and sat at the same table.

   After one day, Linda and Rattanak are going to the supermarket. When they are going to the supermarket they are very close friends. After they had their talk about their families they knew each other well. So they were very happy and very close friends. In the supermarket when Linda bought something like sweets, Rattanak bought the same thing like Linda. Linda asked, “Why did you buy the sweets like me?”

   Rattanak answered, “Because I like to eat sweets.”

   Linda said, “Crazy boy,” and she smiled. Rattanak was smiling, too.

   After three years, Linda and Rattanak finished the university.Rattanak said, “Linda, can you be my girlfriend?”

   Linda said, “Wait. I want to think about this question because I want to find work first.” After she found a job Linda andRattanak were boyfriend and girlfriend.

   One day, Rattanak asked Linda a question. Linda said, “Hey,Rattanak. I can be your girlfriend but you have to take care of me.”

   Rattanak said, “Three months more and we will marry.” Now they are happy.

 

 

Chara, age 15 

Mel u

"How We Feel When We Are Traveling" by Robert. - from The Anjali House Writing Project. - Siem Reap Cambodia

Master Link to All Project Related Posts

Sue Guiney's Introductory Post  -Project Director - contains important links 

My Overview of the Project

My Q and A with Dana Hui Lim author of Mother and the Tiger- A Memoir of the Killing Fields. - essential background information

Peter, like all the work shop participants, is just starting to learn English. Unlike European languages, the structure and grammer of the Khmer language does not share Latin roots with English, making it very hard to master. The two languages do not even share a common alphabet and Khmer is written from left to right.

My thanks to Robert, a pen name as required under Cambodian privacy regulations)

for allowing me to publish this very interesting well written story.

"How We Feel When We Are Travelling"

by Robert

 

   People like travelling when they’re having a holiday.

They want to know the differences between places. They want to show how they are feeling when they are visiting the places that they don’t know.

   For me, when I am travelling I want to see a lot of things that I have never known before and I want to know exactly what that place is like. How surprised I would be when I see that place!

   Actually people travel for different reasons, but especially for me, I travel to know many things. What new kind of animal will I see? Are all the people the same? How many types of buildings can I see? Is it a good place for me to visit? I want to answer all of these questions, but can I really imagine the new place?

 

 

 

Robert, age 16 we have no bio data or picture for this author

Mel u