Khmer literature

On this page

1. Name and early writing
2. Classical literature
3. Printing and the first novels
4. After independence
5. Khmer Rouge years
6. Since 1979
7. See also
8. References

On this page

1. Name and early writing
2. Classical literature
3. Printing and the first novels
4. After independence
5. Khmer Rouge years
6. Since 1979
7. See also
8. References

A mural of an episode from the Reamker in the Royal Palace, Phnom Penh

Khmer literature is the written and oral literature of the Khmer language, from stone inscriptions and verse epics to modern novels and poetry.

Name and early writing

The Khmer word for literature, aksarsastra, comes from aksar, "letter" or "script", and studies of it usually begin with the stone inscriptions. The oldest recorded writings in Cambodia are inscriptions in Sanskrit from the fifth century. Queen Indradevi, whose poem of about 1190 to 1200 was carved in stone, is remembered as one of the country's first known women poets. The oldest inscriptions in Khmer date from the seventh century.

Classical literature

Judy Ledgerwood dates the classical works to the 16th to 19th centuries. Mostly in verse, they used old and borrowed words and complex rhymes, which makes them hard to read. Professional storytellers could learn them by heart from palm-leaf manuscripts and performed them at festivals over many days. The best-known epic is the Reamker, a Khmer telling of the Indian Ramayana, recited, sung and danced for centuries. Other long poems include Lpoek Angkor Vat, on the temples of Angkor, and Tum Teav, a tragic love story regarded as Cambodia's Romeo and Juliet.

Ledgerwood describes three other old genres. The Jataka tales tell of the former lives of the Buddha, and the most popular, the Vessantara Jataka, is recited in full at religious festivals. The chbap are codes of conduct in verse, such as the chbap srey for women and the chbap bros for men, copied and learned by heart from the 14th to the 18th centuries. Folktales, or reuang preng, were told for centuries and mostly written down only in the early 20th century. In the 1920s and 1930s the Buddhist Institute and a French research commission collected folktales across the country, and the Institute published them in eight volumes from 1967 to 1971.

Printing and the first novels

Words Without Borders names the Buddhist Institute as the country's first publisher. Khmer newspapers and journals appeared in the 1920s, and the first Khmer-owned newspaper, Naggaravatta, in 1937. The magazine Kambuja Suriya began publication in 1926. A new word, pralomlok, was coined for the novel, and many early novels came out first in parts in newspapers.

Ledgerwood lists three popular early novels: Koulap Pailin by Nhok Thaem (1936), Sophat (សូផាត) by Rim Kin (1938) and Phka Srapon by Nou Hach (1940). All three were taught in state schools and made into films. The book review site The Modern Novel gives a different date, 1942, for the first edition of Sophat, printed in Saigon. Words Without Borders also names The Waters of Tonle Sap by Kim Hak among the early novels.

After independence

Ledgerwood writes that from the late 1950s, classical works became school textbooks and appeared in prose versions, comic books and radio readings. Nearly 1,000 novels were published from 1950 to 1975, about 50 a year in the early 1970s. Songwriting also became a literary form in these years, the time of Sinn Sisamouth. The writer Kong Bunchhoeun, born in Battambang province, began writing novels, plays, poems and lyrics in the 1950s.

Khmer Rouge years

Under the Khmer Rouge, from 1975 to 1979, literature was abolished and personal writing was forbidden. The national library was used as a storehouse and the library of the Buddhist Institute was destroyed. Ledgerwood cites an estimate that 80 percent of Khmer books and manuscripts in the country were lost.

Since 1979

In the 1980s, under the People's Republic of Kampuchea, literature served state propaganda, while refugee camps and writers abroad reprinted classical works, folktales and chbap. Soon after 1979, some novels were written by hand in school notebooks, then recopied or photocopied and rented out at market stalls for a day at a time. After the 1993 elections, older works came back into print, but new books were held back by printing costs that authors often had to pay themselves.

Writers of the earlier generation who lived through the Khmer Rouge years include the poet U Sam Oeur, who studied at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and Soth Polin, who began writing in the 1960s and later lived in France and the United States. In 2018 ASEF described the Nou Hach Literary Project, begun in 2002, as publishing a yearly literary journal, giving awards and running writing workshops. In 2015 Words Without Borders noted that many writers published their own work, online or as photocopies.

See also

• Chuon Nath
• Documentation Center of Cambodia