As happens with other stories of mass violence, the memory of the Cambodian genocide has crystallized into symbols, either narratives or icons. One of them is Hout Bophana, whose love letters to her husband were at the core of her ordeal under the Khmer Rouge. This article follows Bophana’s story and iconography from 1985, when journalist Elizabeth Becker unearthed her file at the Tuol Sleng archives, until now, when, thanks particularly to film director Rithy Panh, Bophana has become a transnational icon for both grief and resistance.
Key words: Tuol Sleng, Bophana, letters, icon, love, resistance, Elizabeth Becker, Rithy Panh.
BIBLIOGRAPHIE
Becker, Elizabeth, 1986, When the War Was Over, Les Larmes du Cambodge. Histoire d’un auto-génocide, Pour la version française, traduit de l’anglais par Jacques Martinache, Paris, Presses de la Cité, 1987.
Becker, Elizabeth, 2005, « Minor Characters », New York Times, 28 août 2005.
Becker, Elizabeth, 2010, Bophana. Love in the Time of the Khmer Rouge, Phnom Penh, Cambodia Daily Press.
Caswell, Michelle, 2014, Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press.
Nath, Vann, 2008, Dans l’enfer de Tuol Sleng. L’inquisition khmère rouge en mots et en tableaux, traduit de l’anglais par Pascale Haas, Paris, Calman-Lévy.
Niven, Douglas & Riley, Chris, 1996, The Killling Fields, Santa Fe, Twin Palms.
Panh, Rithy & Bataille, Christophe, 2011, L’Élimination, Paris, Grasset.