02586cam a2200325 a 4500 3619 FISKH 20240328135208.0 000908s2000 fr 000 0dfre 2001318428 2710309742 (FrPJT)JTL00052842 DLC DLC eng FISKH a-cb--- DS554.8 .B65 2000 959.604 Bizot, François Le portail / François Bizot ; préface de John Le Carré. Paris : Table ronde, c2000. 397 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm. "A literary and historical tour de force: what one man saw and did in a land of pristine beauty on the eve of one of the twentieth century's most barbaric spectacles." "In 1971, Francois Bizot was a young French scholar of Khmer pottery and Buddhist ritual working in rural Cambodia. Now, more than thirty years later, he has summoned up the unbearable memory of that moment, letting us see as never before those years leading inexorably to genocide. Perfectly recalled, indelibly written, The Gate recounts the nightmare of Bizot's arrest and captivity on suspicion of being an American spy, and his nearly miraculous survival as the only Westerner ever to escape a Khmer Rouge prison. It is the story, as well, of Bizot's unlikely friendship with his captor, Douch - a figure today better remembered as a ruthless perpetrator of the then-looming terror, about which Bizot tried, without success, to warn his government." "Bizot's experience to that point would itself have merited report. But upon his return to Cambodia four years later, chance ordained a second remarkable act in this drama. As the sole individual fluent in both French and Khmer, Bizot found himself playing the intermediary in a surreal standoff when the Communist-backed guerillas now ascendant, laid siege to the French Embassy compound in Phnom Penh. Finally it would fall to Bizot to lead the desperate retreat of the colonial population: here he recounts how he helped the remaining Westerners - and any Cambodians he could - to escape the doomed capital."--BOOK JACKET. Bizot, François. Communism Cambodia. Political atrocities Cambodia. Cambodia History 1953-1975. Cambodia History 1975-1979. 7 cbc origres 3 ncip 20 y-gencatlg ddc BK 0 3619 3619 0 0 ddc 0 0 NFIC 001 001 RKTK1 2024-03-28 0 BIZ 959.604 DS554.B6513 2024-0419 2024-03-28 13:52:04 2024-03-28 BK