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The Gate
by: Francois Bizot

List Price: £7.99

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Used Price: £0.47
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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 323
EAN: 9780099449195
ISBN: 0099449196
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: February 05, 2004
Publisher: Vintage
Studio: Vintage
Sales Rank: 19243

Related Items:

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge

The Lost Executioner: A Story of the Khmer Rouge

Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
French ethnologist Francois Bizot's The Gate is a unique insight into the rise of the Khmer Rouge. In 1971 Bizot was studying ancient Buddhist traditions and living with his khmer partner and daughter in a small village in the environs of the Angkor temple complex. The Khmer Rouge was fighting a guerilla war in rural Cambodia and during a routine visit to a nearby temple, Bizot and his two khmer colleagues were captured by them and imprisoned deep in the jungle on suspicion of working for the CIA. On trial for his life, over the next three months Bizot developed a strong relationship with his captor, Comrade Douch, who would later become the Khmer Rouge's chief interrogator and commandant of the horrifying Tuol Sleng prison where thousands of captives were tortured prior to execution. The portrait Bizot gives of the young schoolteacher-turned revolutionary and their interaction is simultaneously fascinating and terrifying.

Finally freed after Douch had pleaded his case with the leadership, Bizot became the only western captive of the Khmer Rouge ever to be released alive, but his story does not end there. On his return to Phnom Penh, due to his fluency in khmer, he was appointed interpreter between the occupying forces and the remaining western nationals holed up in the French embassy. As the interlocutor at the eponymous gate, he relates with dreadful resignation the moment when the khmer nationals in the compound were ordered out by the Khmer Rouge forces for "resettlement".

Bizot's is a touching and gripping account of one of the darkest moments in modern history and it is told with a unique voice. As a Cambodian resident, a lover of Cambodia and a fluent khmer speaker, Bizot shows an understanding of the prevailing mood in the country that other western commentators have failed to capture effectively, while as a western academic he is able to see the forces at work and how Cambodia fits into the bigger picture of South East Asian conflict. What emerges is a tale of a land plunged into insanity and Bizot tells it like a eulogy for a dead friend and a confrontation of old demons. The Gate is a stunning book and a must for anyone interested in this grim period of Asian history. --Duncan Thomson

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A man is killed more easily than an animal
François Bizot's memories paint the Cambodian power struggle between the Red Khmers and their enemies, as well as the fall of Phnom Penh, from an original point of view. He was as a Western citizen directly involved in the action; first, as a prisoner accused of being an American spy, and later as an official intermediary between the French Embassy and the new regime.

As a prisoner, he was confronted and discussed heavily with the latter chief of the horrible S21 death camp, a teacher of mathematics and a staunch ideologue: Douch.
As all Red Khmer leaders, Douch had absolutely no respect for individual lives (except his own): `it's the same with the monuments at Angkor ... who now thinks about the countless individuals who ... Read More:

Rating:

- Very Dissapoining
The author spends almost the entire time hidden in the French embassy resulting in a very boring book in which nothing much happens!

Rating:

- Left me disappointed
This book had all the ingredients and potential to make a superb read.
However I was disappointed in it, the author is a highly intelligent and intellectual man of creativity. I feel this stifles the readability of the book and produces a stilted, academic account of his experiences rather than reading as a free flowing, exciting, nerve wrenching story like I'm sure it was in reality.
The book starts well and is at its best up to his capture and detainment.
After that it labours and gets harder to read as it continues.
I did finish it and am glad to have read it, but I expected it to be much better considering the critic's reviews and those on this site.

Rating:

- Outstanding, yet terrifying
In 1971, on a routine outing Francois Bizot, a young French ethnologist, was captured by the Khmer Rouge.

Founded during the 1950s, the Khmer Rouge became infamous for their ruthless guerilla fight against the Lon Nol regime and their murder of more than two million people during their 1975-79 rule. Forced out of power in 1979 by the Vietnamese invasion the Khmer Rouge survived the 1980s with the help of Thailand and the USA - that other 'victim' of a Vietnamese war. Following the Paris Agreement in 1991, it began to fade and following the death of Pol Pot in 1998 it collapsed.

The guerilla war was in full swing when Bizot was captured in 1971. By (perhaps) speaking Khmer and sheer luck he survived his captor, Douch, and ... Read More:

Rating:

- A very good book - but a few notes of caution for readers
This is a good book and readers will see from the other customer reviewsthat it comes highly rated - indeed I purchased the book due to theglowing recommendations of other Amazon customers.
Just a few notes of caution though.
The language in the book can be heavy-going at times - I often foundmyself reaching for the dictionary. I do not know whether this is down tothe translator or the academic background of the (French) author (or mypoor vocabularly!). Anyway, some readers will enjoy the wide-ranging useof language, others may find that sometimes it breaks up the flow of thebook a bit and makes it a bit cold (almost like a student essay wherepoints are awarded for using difficult words).
The book is essentially in two-halves - firstly ... Read More:

Books : The Gate