Reprisals
About this book
ABOUT REPRISALS In the teeming market of a Cambodian village, Rina runs into the officer who murdered her father thirty-five years ago during the Khmer Rouge regime. What follows is the deeply moving portrait of how she seeks revenge, against the backdrop of a nation still coming to terms with this tragic era of its history. As Rina spends months watching Touch Pheng, a broken relic of the arrogant young camp commander she knew, haggling over mangoes and resting in the shade, memory and grief twist in unexpected ways, transforming her in the process. Her husband, her best friend, and her best friend’s husband all have their ideas of how Rina should deal with this killer. But Rina must make up her own mind, leading to a final scene that is likely to haunt you with its ambiguity and beauty for years to come. Bestselling novelist and National Book Award finalist Alan Lightman (Einstein’s Dreams, The Diagnosis) has always been known for his lyrical gifts and his knowledge of the human heart. But rarely has his mastery come quite so close to showing us our human core. Stunning in the simplicity of its prose, this is a story about the conflict between family and self, compassion and revenge, national and personal identity. PRAISE FOR ALAN LIGHTMAN “A gem of a novel that is strange witty erudite and alive with Lightman's playful genius.” -- Junot Díaz, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, on Mr. g "By turns whimsical and meditative, playful and provocative, Einstein's Dreams pulls the reader into a dream world like a powerful magnet.“ -- The New York Times "A profoundly human story, rich in depth and nuance . . . Lightman writes with a lightness, a lyrical understatedness that belies the underlying depths and complexities of the novel . . . Reunion is the work of a great writer." -- The Globe and Mail (Toronto) ABOUT ALAN LIGHTMAN Alan Lightman is the author of six novels including the international bestseller Einstein’s Dreams, The Diagnosis, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction, and the forthcoming The Accidental Universe (Pantheon, Jan.'14). His essays and stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic, and Story, among other places. In 2003, Lightman founded the Harpswell Foundation, a nonprofit organization empowering a new generation of women leaders in Cambodia through housing, education, and leadership training. The government of Cambodia has awarded Lightman the Gold Medal for humanitarian service to Cambodia for this work. He is professor of the Practice of the Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.