There is no cover on the pocket-sized business diary and the binding is ragged. Blue ink is still visible on the pages, which are worn and have turned sepia over time and with handling. Yet there is little in the way of the flowing lines of prose we might expect in a diary, and towards the end the words give way to line after line of coiling pencil.

The diary of Na Tao Ky, written in a Banque Khmère pour le Commerce business diary from 1972, was shared in 2019 by his grandson Vira Rama. Over the past seven years Vira and I have developed a friendship, with much discussion about his family’s experiences of the Cambodian genocide and their photographs, which they buried to protect their identities during the Khmer Rouge era and to preserve a sense of themselves.

• Tags: Cambodia, Charles Fox, Dayanny So, Issue 26, Na Tao Ky