?A harrowing narrative, worthy of a novel by Graham Greene or
John le Carré? [It] possesses the indelible power of a survivor?s
testimony.? --The New York Times ?It possesses such truth of
feeling, such clarity and conviction of narrative, such a wealth of
image and adventure, and such depths of long-held passion that I do
believe it is indeed that rarest thing: a classic.? ? John le Carré
, from the Foreword?A deeply unsettling account of a particular
ordeal that suggests larger question
內容簡介:
In 1971 a young French ethnologist named Francois Bizot was
taken prisoner by forces of the Khmer Rouge who kept him chained in
a jungle camp for months before releasing him. Four years later
Bizot became the intermediary between the now victorious Khmer
Rouge and the occupants of the besieged French embassy in Phnom
Penh, eventually leading a desperate convoy of foreigners to safety
across the Thai border.
Out of those ordeals comes this transfixing book. At its center
lies the relationship between Bizot and his principal captor, a man
named Douch, who is today known as the most notorious of the Khmer
Rouge’s torturers but who, for a while, was Bizot’s protector and
friend. Written with the immediacy of a great novel, unsparing in
its understanding of evil, The Gate manages to be at once
wrenching and redemptive.