Music Through the Dark
by Daran Kravanh and Bree Lafreniere, audiobook
"I cannot tell you how or why I survived; I do not know myself. It is like this: love and music and memory and invisible hands, and something that comes out of the society of the living and the dead for which there are no words."
So begins the extraordinary story of one man's experience of Cambodia's holocaust during the 1970s. As Anne Frank did in her Diary, Daran Kravanh takes readers into the heart of a horrifying tragedy-one that claimed the lives of his parents and seven siblings and as many as three million other Cambodians. Among those murdered were thousands of intellectuals and artists; as a musician, Daran was himself a target for execution, but it was his talent for playing the accordian that saved his life. Throughout the Khmer Rouge period, the accordian became for Daran a seemingly enchanted instrument through which the spirit of life traveled.
From an early age Daran loved music. When a troupe of musicians arrives at his father's house, the eight-year-old Daran sees and hears an accordian being played for the first time: "It was magical, not sound alone but sound accompanied by light and warmth. It was a strange voice, like one from far away and at the same time within me." That night he plays an old folk song perfectly and effortlessly on the accordian, without instruction. Years later, starving and exhausted after weeks of forced labor, Daran will perform the same song while surrounded by his Khmer Rouge captors, who will spare his life after hearing him play. Time and again Daran will be brought to the brink of death and then saved, uncannily, by someone who wants to hear his music.
Music through the Dark is not just a book for those interested in Southeast Asian history or the Cambodian diaspora. It imparts a deeper understanding of the soul while providing a searching exploration of physical and spiritual survival, of meaning inherent in nature and existence. It is an original, unforgettable tale told with a quiet wisdom and insight that lifts the story out of the violence that generated it and the violence that it describes.
Praise:
"We are privilieged to have the story of Daran Kravanh's life during the Khmer Rouge genocidal reign told so beautifully. Bree Lafreniere allows us to understand the greatness of the spirit and its ultimate triumph over darkness. This book is an extraordinary record of the Cambodian soul."
- Dith Pran, Cambodian holocaust survivor whose story inspired an award-winning film, The Killing Fields
"Not in a long time have I read a book so horrifying and so beautiful. What a species we are: capable of unimaginable brutality and, equally, of unimaginable grace. We plunge into the depths of both in Music through the Dark, a story about life, death, and destiny in Cambodia. The book is part poetry, part elegy; half fairy tale, half nightmare. And it is all true, and full of truth, about the potential of human evil and the exquisite saving grace of music and the human spirit from which it arises. Told in an artless yet strangely lyrical voice, the story of Daran Kravanh is not just a tale of survival but of survival through one of the darkest pits of hell as created by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge soldiers. . . . It is a story every one should know and no human being should experience."
- Alex Tizon, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Seattle Times
Daran’s story told in Bree Lafreniere’s beautiful and evocative language, and sensitively read by Camilla Kintana, will entrance and inspire listeners. The audiobook also contains excerpts of Daran playing the songs mentioned in the book. Order the audiobook below.