Landbridge

One woman's heart-breaking, life-affirming memoir of loss, survival, bearing witness and a legacy of love

'Landbridge has forever altered what I know, how I love, and what I hope' Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing

'A masterpiece to console and guide generations to come' Alice Pung, author of Unpolished Gem

Born in, and named after, Thailand's Khao-I-Dang refugee camp, Y-Dang Troeung was - aged one - the last of 60,000 Cambodian refugees admitted to Canada, fleeing her homeland in the aftermath of Pol Pot's brutal Khmer Rouge regime. In Canada, Y-Dang became a literal poster child for the benevolence of the Canadian refugee project - and, implicitly, the unknowable horrors of the place she had escaped.

In Landbridge, a family and personal memoir of astonishing power, Y-Dang grapples with a life lived in the shadow of pre-constructed narratives. She considers the transactional relationship between a host country and its refugees; she delves into the contradictions between ethnic, regional and national identities; and she writes to her young son Kai with the promise that this family legacy is passed down with love at its core.

Written in fragmentary chapters, each with the vivid light of a single candle in a pitch-black room, Landbridge is a courageous piece of life writing, the story of a family, and a bold, ground-breaking intervention in the way trauma and migration are told.

Reviews

Y-Dang Troeung is a great ancestor to whom we owe our reverence. Her gift to us is the art of reclamation that renders infinite futures possible. Troeung's legacy is a refugee lifeworld - powerful in its creation, fearless in its scholarship, and eternal in its love. Landbridge is a torch that we must pass on to every generation. The story of her life is an extraordinary fire in my heart