Khun Srun


Khun Srun was an important Cambodian writer. He was born in Char village, Roveang commune, Samrong district, Takéo province, into a poor Chinese Cambodian family. When he was eight, his father, Khun Kim Chheng, a Chinese man who had fled Communism, died, and he and his six siblings were raised by his mother, Chi Eng, a small shopkeeper and a devout Buddhist. He began his schooling during the country's first years of independence, when the doors to higher education and professionalization were inching open to all Cambodians, regardless of their social and economic class. A brilliant student, he studied Khmer literature and psychology at the university in Phnom Penh, becoming widely read in the sciences, mathematics, and European literature. Amid the turmoil of the 1960s, he worked as a professor of mathematics and a journalist while writing fiction and poetry. He also worked as a member of the textbook editorial committee at the Ministry of Education. In less than four years, he published three collections of poems, short tales, and philosophical anecdotes; two collections of autobiographical short stories, The Last Residence and The Accused; and a final volume of poems, For a Woman. He was influenced by both existentialism and Cambodian Buddhism. In 1971, he was imprisoned during 7 months by the right-wing Lon Nol government for refusing to collaborate, but still refused to align himself with the extreme left. In 1973, after being imprisoned for a second time, he finally joined the communist guerrillas. He was only 28, and his life as a writer was finished. After the Khmer Rouge took power, in 1975, Khun Srun. On the 20th of December 1978, he, his wife and their two youngest children were victims of the last purges. They were arrested, transferred to Tuol Sleng prison and probably killed in Choeung Ek, few days before the end of Pol Pot's regime. Only Khun Srun's nine-year-old daughter, Khun Khem, survived, taken by the Khmer Rouge and forced to live among them in the forest on the Cambodian-Thai border.
One of his brothers, Khun Ngoy, was among the intellectuals who returned to Cambodia during the rule of the Khmer Rouge and disappeared from Dey Kraham camp.
The life and writing of Khun Srun is portrayed in Eric Galmard's documentary film, A Tomb for Khun Srun.

Books

"Srun might have written the first story, ផ្លេកបន្ទោរមួយ, after reading the short story "Erostratus" from Sartre's book, The Wall. When the narrator, a prisoner, takes a shower on the roof of the police station, he suddenly has the delusion that he wants to kill a woman who happens to be there, just as the hero in "Erostratus" while standing on top of a high building decides to kill someone. The second story, ភេទដែលគេជិន, deals with the confession of a lady teacher who is distrustful of men. One can draw some comparisons with characters from classical stories such as Neang Kakey, Tum Teav, and Reamker. The lady teacher asserts that men have always exploited women, marriage does not bring women happiness and women have a right not to bear a child. The story raises gender issues that are the same today. In ផ្ទះអន្ទិតសុក, the hero, Sok, leaves his home village and goes to Phnom Penh where he wanders from house to house as a servant. He sees that a rich family who used to live in an elegant home had come on hard times and finally found a place to live in peace in the simple home of a married couple. សាលាខ្ញុំ and គ្រូភឿន describe the sweet memories of Srun's schooldays."
"Khun’s last novel, The Accused, published in 1973, is narrated by a writer imprisoned by Cambodia’s military government. The accused asserts that he is not a person of politics or even a man of conviction, simply an observer and a writer. He, a lover of literature, wants to flee the country and be part of the wider world; yet he wants, also, to have the courage to risk his life for his principles. Shortly after The Accused was published, Khun left Phnom Penh and joined the Khmer Rouge."