Book Donation at CJCC

In morning of 21 September, a book donation ceremony was held at Cambodia Japan Cooperation Center (CJCC). Futari Ida, Two Ida in English, was translated in Khmer language by a group of freelance translators. Now 3,000 copies were printed, and half of them were donated to Ministry of Education Youth and Sports. I was surprised to learn that the ceremony was presided over by Mr. Kim Oeun, my Core English lecturer in Year 3 and currently deputy general director in MoEYS. Actually I was invited by phone only the day before since I am one of the translators.

The story is sorta fiction combining with historical non-fiction on the effect of atomic bomb in Hiroshima. A little girl named Ida and her grandpa were killed in bomb leaving a chair at home. The chair keep waiting them from day and day until one day it come to life and is able to walk around and even speak. Years later a little girl, nicknamed Ida, found the abandoned house. Strangely, she knows very corner of the house as if she used to live there. And the chair thinks that she is his Ida who was killed years ago. Was the deceased Ida reincarnated as the latter little Ida?

Translators of the Two Ida.