The Clay Marble

The events of The Clay Marble are anchored in a national tragedy almost without precedent in the modern age: the Cambodian Civil War and the rise of the Khmer Rouge, a brutal communist regime that presided over the deaths of over 20% of the country’s population through starvation, forced labor, and murder. Minfong Ho’s novel begins in 1980, after the Khmer Rouge has been forced into exile, but the nation’s suffering is still far from over. Vietnamese forces occupy the country, and various Cambodian factions (royalist, anti-communist, and communist, including the resurgent Khmer Rouge) continue to fight the Vietnamese and each other. As always in civil war, the civilian population is caught in the crossfire.

Early in The Clay Marble, Dara, the novel’s narrator, recalls a time of peace and happiness 10 years before, when “the smiling round-faced Prince Sihanouk ruled Cambodia” (5). This period of relative tranquility came to an end in 1970, when Sihanouk was forced out of power by members of his own government. The main cause for this was the civil war in neighboring Vietnam, which regularly spilled over the border: Communist guerrillas in that war often took refuge in the jungles of eastern Cambodia, even using Cambodian ports to resupply their forces in South Vietnam.

Eventually the more right-wing elements of Sihanouk’s regime, promising to stabilize the country by forcing out the foreign guerillas, won enough popular support to exile the Prince and take a hard line against communists, both Vietnamese and domestic. In this, they were aided by the United States, which escalated its intensive bombing of eastern Cambodia—an adjunct of its deep involvement in the Vietnam War—to destroy the havens and supply lines of the Viet Cong and other communist insurgents, such as the Cambodian Khmer Rouge.

However, the communists were soon victorious in both countries. On April 17, 1975, Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city, fell to the Khmer Rouge, followed less than two weeks later by the fall of Saigon (capital of South Vietnam) to the Viet Cong. The Khmer Rouge, embittered by the massive bombings they had endured in the jungles of eastern Cambodia, imposed a vengefully cruel regime, led by the mysterious dictator Pol Pot. All of Cambodia’s cities were evacuated, and all citizens were forced into vast workcamps in the country, where they were given little to eat and were subject to severe punishments for minor infractions.

This attempt at collectivization on a national scale was poorly conceived and led to mass starvation. As a result, the regime scapegoated many of its own citizens, from party officials to common workers, thousands of whom were tortured and executed as “counterrevolutionaries.” It is estimated that between 1.5 and 3 million Cambodians died during this period (1975-79) at the hands of their own government. This massive loss of life is commonly referred to as the Cambodian Genocide. 

Although both Cambodia and Vietnam were now ruled by (nominally) communist regimes, border disputes and other frictions continued between the two countries. In 1979, a full-scale invasion by the Vietnamese Army finally drove the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh and back into the jungle. The brutal workcamps were liberated, the cities were reopened, and foreign aid flowed into the country to help the poor and starving. This is the starting point of The Clay Marble, a time fraught with both dangers and miracles: The worst of the country’s struggles are over, and foreign-run aid stations now dispense food, rice seed, and tools on a massive scale, but danger and uncertainty still hang in the air.

The country is still menaced by civil war, as competing factions (some of them supported by foreign countries, such as the United States) provoke the Vietnam-installed regime in Phnom Penh, making daily life treacherous for civilians. As Ho’s narrator tells us: “In the latest spate of fighting, the Khmer Rouge soldiers had even set fire to our houses and rice barns, so the invading Vietnamese soldiers wouldn’t be able to claim them” (5). Even though the Khmer Rouge has been ousted, its raids on civilians continue, along with shelling and other bloodshed between the warring factions, and the many other risks to life and limb that come with civil war, such as landmines, disease, and starvation.  

When The Clay Marble went to press in 1991, Cambodia was still embroiled in civil war. Late in that year, however, the United Nations was able to impose a cease-fire, and in 1993, Prince Sihanouk was restored to his throne, 23 years after his 1970 exile. In 1998, the last Khmer Rouge guerrillas surrendered, and the years since have brought relative stability to the recovering nation, which is now a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).