Laura Jean McKay, a writer and performer, is the author of the new short story collection Holiday in Cambodia. Her writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including The Best Australian Stories and The Big Issue. She is based in Melbourne, Australia.
Q: Why did you end up setting your stories in Cambodia?
A: I was working as an aid worker and doing a lot of writing
on the side and I was sent to Phnom Penh by my organisation. I had never been
anywhere like Cambodia, and haven't since. I loved and feared it – which is a
pretty good place to write from. I got offered a contract to work in
Ratanakiri, in the remote north, which was even more astonishing than Phnom
Penh.
I didn't really mean to write about Cambodia but because I'm
a writer I just started to. Originally I was going to work on a novel but I was
around all these amazing Khmer writers, who worked on short fiction, poems and
essays and I was influenced by them.
Q: Why did you choose "Holiday in Cambodia" as
your title?
A: “Holiday in Cambodia” is the name of a song by The Dead
Kennedys, written in 1980. I've always loved the song and the lyric “A holiday
in Cambodia / Where the slums got so much soul” seemed to sum up my
collection – about people, often tourists, searching for something in a country
that has been decimated by war. I wanted the collection to question how you can
possibly have a holiday in Cambodia …
Q: Your stories are set in various time periods over the
past 60 years. Why is that, and did you have a time period that especially
interested you?
A: The novel that I started out writing (which became the
story “Breakfast”) was set in ‘60s Cambodia, in the middle of the country's
modern cultural revolution. There was an amazing music, art and literary scene,
but also a lot of political turmoil internally and through the war in Vietnam.
I am fascinated by that era, but also by the end of French
colonialism, the Khmer Rouge period, and the ‘80s and ‘90s. Cambodia has
arguably one of the most tumultuous revolutionary histories of recent times – a
history that goes beyond Angkor and the Khmer Rouge – and I wanted to reflect
some of that, so that the stories set in modern day Cambodia would have a
background and a meaning beyond the usual tourist tale.
Q: Are there particular themes you hope your readers get
from your stories?
A: Like most stories, the themes here are sex and death.
That sounds a little strange to say it like that but most stories are about
one, the other, or both. Love, birth, death and all that comes in between.
Arriving in Cambodia for the first time in 2007, I felt that
sex and death were very present – from the astonishing amount of brothels, to
the inappropriate expat parties, to the horrific road toll, to the short life
expectancy … I felt that this was a country dealing with the very raw elements
of survival and recovery and I was shocked and fascinated by that, especially
coming from Australia where everything happens inside!
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have started writing a novel and, because I love the
short story form, I am writing stories on the side.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: There are some great stories by Cambodian writers. You
can find them in Nou Hach Literary Journal, in Just a human being and other stories and in Under the Shadow of Angkor. You can also read more of my writing
or find out more about my book at laurajeanmckay.com.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb. This Q&A also appears on www.hauntinglegacy.com.
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