Contact: Kay Fike Jones
Chanrithy Him
A survivor of one of the 20th century's most brutal and gruesome chapters visits Mississippi State April 16-18 to share her experiences in Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge came to power.
While at the university, Chanrithy Him will speak at two public programs in Simrall Hall auditorium. The first begins at 12:30 p.m. on the 17th; the other, at 7 p.m. on the 18th.
On the 16th, she will share a sample of Cambodian artistic culture through the performance of a classical Khmer dance. The program, also open to the public, begins at 11 a.m. in Mitchell Memorial Library's main foyer.
Him was 9 in 1975 when the radical communist guerilla movement led by the notorious Pol Pot seized control of the Southeast Asian nation. Four years later, she was among only five in her 12-person family to have survived a holocaust akin to Adolph Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s.
Following both MSU lectures, she will sign copies of "When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge." Published last year by W.W. Norton and Co. of New York, her 330-page memoir seeks to educate the world about how Pol Pot and his henchmen caused the deaths of an estimated two million Cambodians, some 30 percent of the population.
The title refers to a Cambodian proverb about how evil--"broken glass"--can float, but not forever.
Today, Him lives in Eugene, Ore., where she is a researcher with the Khmer Adolescent Project at the Oregon Health Sciences University. Specifically, she studies the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder among Cambodian survivors.
For more information, contact Stephen Cottrell of the International Services Office at (662) 325-8929 or scottrell@iso.msstate.edu.