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Friday, September 26, 2008

Struggling Writers Emerging, Book by Book

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Friday, 26 September 2008

The novel sat, unpurchased, on a stand outside O’Russey Market. On its cover, a young man carried a beautiful woman in his arms, through rain and lighting. The novel, “If a Heart Has Blood,” was one of the books coming out of Cambodia’s growing literary scene and, like other Cambodian novels, had a message.

“If a Heart Has Blood” tells the story of a singer who tricks her powerful, promiscuous father into sleeping with her. It is the second novel of 28-year-old author You Sophea, who said recently it was meant as an indictment of the practice of “okhnas,” businessmen of high standing, having sex with young girls.

“I’ve written the novel in hopes of getting rid of attempts by some singers to get other women’s husbands,” he said. “Meanwhile, okhnas should stop considering young female singers as sex objects, because if the singers were their own daughters or relatives, how would these okhnas feel?”