L’anarchiste is born of trauma. The first part, a short story from 1960s Cambodia, presents a world on edge and a narrator stretched between two languages and two cultures—his French colonial schooling and his rural Khmer roots—as Cambodia is drawn into the Vietnam War. The second part, written from Paris in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge genocide, is a tale of alienation, and partly autobiographical.

Part one is Soth Polin’s translation from French of his banned 1967 Khmer novella, Pitiless Provocation. Set in Phnom Penh, and narrated by A-Chhem, a young, single history professor, the story unfolds in dialogue with his Cambodian friend, a professor of French who teaches in the provinces and seeks sex in the city on weekends. Part two, written in French in 1981, begins in Paris but moves between France, Cambodia and filial, marital and political alliances and betrayals. Virak, the narrator, is a father of two who has been driving a taxi for the past four years. A Cambodian émigré grappling with the loss of his family to the Khmer Rouge, he is engulfed by guilt, shame and self-blame.

• Tags: Cambodia, Issue 26, Penny Edwards, Soth Polin