"Cambodia: A Book For People Who Find Television Too Slow" is a ferociously brilliant book that challenges its readers to see the world with new eyes, in a new light. Through an arresting division of its pages-- thriteen wildly imaginative short stories at the top, and a passionate essay on colonialism and Southeast Asia at the bottom, running like a Mekong River footnote throughout the book-- Brian Fawcett startles, amuses, and infuriates his hooked readers with juxtaposed images and penetrating insights into the media jungle that defines our age.

Like subtitles read in a foreign film, the pace of "Cambodia" accelerates, and the reader's eye quickens as the work unfolds. Soon, "Cambodia" is moving more swiftly than the images on the evening news, showing us that the book's title is not an enigma, but a realistic description of its remarkably interactive contents.

Brian Fawcett's passion stirs us to resist the annihilation of memory and imagination in our society, lest we lose "our right to remember our pasts and envision new futures" in a violent world where "Cambodia is as near as your television set."

Author: Brian Fawcett
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 10/19/1989
Pages: 224
Weight: 0.64lbs
Size: 8.52h x 5.54w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780020321507


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 09/22/1989

About the Author
Brian Fawcett is a Canadian novelist and poet based in Toronto, Ontario. After graduating from Simon Fraser University, he worked as an urban planner before becoming a full-time writer while also teaching creative writing in a maximum-security prison. His other works include Capital Tales (1984), The Secret Journal of Alexandre (1985), and Friends (1971).