Cambodia’s Curse

A generation after Pol Pot’s regime killed one quarter of the nation’s population, Cambodia shows every outward sign of having overcome its devastating history – the streets of Phnom Penh are paved; skyscrapers dot the skyline. But behind this façade lies a country still haunted by its years of terror.



In 2008 and 2009, Joel Brinkley – who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the fall of the Khmer Rouge – returned to Cambodia. He discovered a population in the grip of a venal government. He learned that between one third and one half of Cambodians who lived through the Khmer Rouge era suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and that its afflictions are being passed to the next generation. His extensive close-up reporting in Cambodia’s Curse illuminates the country, its people, and the deep historical roots of its modern-day behaviour. This is a devastating and important look at Cambodia today.



Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is a twenty-three-year veteran of the New York Times. He has worked in more than fifty nations and writes a nationally syndicated op-ed column on foreign policy. He won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1980 and was twice a finalist for an investigative reporting Pulitzer in the following years. This is his fifth book.