Giovanna Silva, 17 APRIL 1975 – A CAMBODIAN JOURNEY, 2018

Text by Peter Fröberg Idling

“It could be said that this is the story of two men who were born in the Cambodian countryside in the mid-1920s. Two men who would leave their mark on their homeland. One as the country’s foremost architect and town-and-country planner, the other as one of the blood-soaked 20th century’s most blood-soaked dictators.”––Peter Fröberg Idling

On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge marched on Phnom Penh led, among others, by Brother Number One, Pol Pot, real name Saloth Sar. As the city’s inhabitants tried to celebrate as best they could Cambodian new year, which falls between 15 and 17 April, on the evening of April 16 fireworks and firecrackers exploded against the background of the darkening sky together with the firing of weapons. The number of dead in the three and a half years of Pol Pot’s rule will never be established with precision. With the fall of the Shianouk regime its leading architect also disappeared. Vann Molyvann rebuilt the country taking his inspiration from the temples of Angkor Wat. The Olympic stadium is one of the country’s prominent modern buildings. It is said that officials of the Lon Nol government were gathered here to be executed during the revolution. The book by Giovanna Silva and Peter Fröeberg Idling retraces the history of Cambodia, creating a fictional and personal story that looks at the country through the eyes of the two authors.