Vaddey Ratner is a Cambodian–American author and novelist.

Career

Her first novel '' In the Shadow of the Banyan'' was a finalist for the 2013

Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award The PEN/Hemingway Award is awarded annually to a full-length novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a full-length book of fiction. The award is named after Ernest Hemingway and funded by the Hemingway ...

and the 2013 Book of the Year

Indies Choice Book Award The Indies Choice Book Award (formerly known as Book Sense Book of the Year 2000-2008) is an American literary award that was inaugurated at BookExpo America 2000. The American Booksellers Association (ABA) rededicated the award (previously kno ...

. It was also one of five books that received an Adult Debut Honor Award from the

American Booksellers Association The American Booksellers Association (ABA) is a non-profit trade association founded in 1900 that promotes independent bookstores in the United States. ABA's core members are key participants in their communities' local economy and culture, and t ...

. Her second novel ''Music of the Ghosts'', published in 2017, was longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize of 2018.

Personal life

Vaddey Ratner (née Vaddey Ayuravann Sisowath) is a war refugee and a survivor of the

Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge (; ; km, ខ្មែរក្រហម, ; ) is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. ...

genocide. Born into the Sisowath line of the royal family in Cambodia, Ratner was five years old when the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975, and for the next four years, she and her family endured forced labor, starvation, and violent persecution. In 1979, after the Khmer Rouge regime collapsed, she and her mother survived, while the rest of her immediate family had perished, along with more than a million other Cambodians. Shortly after, the two fled Cambodia, escaping across the border to the Khao I Dang

refugee camp A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced peo ...

in Thailand. In 1981, she immigrated to the United States and lived with her mother in Missouri. After graduating from high school as her class valedictorian in 1990, Ratner attended

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, where she graduated ''summa cum laude'', specializing in Asian history and literature. After graduating from Cornell University, Ratner lived in the Washington D.C. area while working in international affairs. Over the years, she and her husband Blake Ratner, founder of Collaborating for Resilience, an international environmental policy initiative, and their daughter have lived in Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia. She and her family now reside in Potomac, Maryland.

References

21st-century American women writers Cornell University alumni 21st-century American novelists American women novelists Cambodian emigrants to the United States Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-novelist-stub