About the Book
Title: The Immortal Seeds: A Tribute to Golden Treasures
Author: Sambath Meas
Genre: Family Memoir
This is a story about a father’s dream of escaping a war-torn country
in search of stability and freedom, so that his children can live and
thrive.
Sarin Meas, who was born and grew up in a remote village in Trangel,
Kampong Chhnang, drifts from one place to another in search of a
purpose, and a better life. In Pailin, a small town in western Cambodia
known for its richness of gemstones, he meets a poor and uneducated girl
whose daily life, from dusk until dawn, is strained by hard work:
selling fruits and vegetables at the local market, along with cooking,
doing laundry and cleaning up after strangers and relatives whom her
aunt has taken in. If she doesn’t do her chores correctly and one of
them tells on her, her aunt, a woman whose mood changes like a person
suffering from a split personality, hurls foul language at her and beats
her with any heavy object in sight. Sarin realizes that this young
woman, whom everyone calls Thach, will die if she continues to live like
this. So he marries her out of compassion. His compassion turns into
love. Sarin and Thach form a family.
Tragically, after fifteen years of peaceful existence and
independence from France, Cambodia gets sucked into the war of idealism
between the world’s super powers—America, China, and the Soviet Union—by
way of the Vietnam War. Cambodian leaders and people take sides. The
Khmer Republic (backed by the United States) and the Khmer Rouge (backed
by China, the Soviet Union and Vietnam) fight each other acrimoniously.
After five years of battle, the relentless Khmer Rouge soldiers emerge
victorious. Sarin has an opportunity to escape to Thailand with his
family, but chooses to remain behind out of fear of the unknown. Soon he
realizes the victors don’t know how to manage the country. Fear,
paranoia and revenge turn them and their supporters into a killing
machine. Sarin, through cleverness and luck, helps his family navigate
the horror of communism. When a second opportunity arrives, like
thousands of other surviving Cambodians, he takes the chance to venture
to the unknown—to find freedom, opportunity, and a better life for his
family.
The Immortal Seeds: A Tribute to Golden Treasures is not
only about the continuing of a family’s life cycle; it is also about a
father’s idea—a purpose—that gets passed on to his daughter. In turn she
hopes to pass it on to people not only within her community but also
around the world.
“King Grandfather would like to wish that your memoir
The Immortal Seeds will become successful.”
—Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia
“
The Immortal Seeds is a story of war, love, and the
unbreakable bonds of family. Touchingly told, Sambath pays homage to her
family across the generations, and shares how they helped the Meases to
survive the war and thrive in peace.”
—Loung Ung, author of First They Killed My Father and Lucky Child
“
The Immortal Seeds exhibits a memoir’s emphasis on highly personalized, if not fully contextualized, experiences.”
—The Phnom Penh Post, Cambodia’s Newspaper
Author Bio

SAMBATH
MEAS was born in Pailin, Cambodia at a time of civil war. Having
survived the effects of the Vietnam War, the Khmer Civil War, and the
Maoist-inspired Khmer Rouge regime, her parents decided not to stick
around for another phase of mass killings. Her family, like thousands of
other
Khmers, fled to the Cambodian-Thai border in 1979. After being
displaced in refugee camps for two years, Chicago became their new home
in 1981. Meas graduated from Loyola University of Chicago with a B.A. in
political science and is taking writing classes at Northwestern
University. She has worked in the legal industry for over 19 years and
contributes to the richness that is Chicago literature. In her spare
time, she helps novice writers to get started with their stories. Her
current projects include self-help, science fiction, graphic novel, and
young adult fantasy books. She writes fiction, focusing on murder
mystery, fantasy, and science fiction; and nonfiction, focusing on
memoir, biography, and self-improvement.
You can follow the author at the following sites:
Website:
www.sambathmeas.com
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/sambathmeas1
Twitter: @MissSambathMeas
Instagram: smeasuniverse
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