Vaddey Ratner

Vaddey Ratner is a Cambodian-American author who survived the Khmer Rouge genocide as a child, losing most of her family before escaping to the United States in 1981 as a refugee. She graduated summa cum laude from Cornell University and later published her debut novel, In the Shadow of the Banyan, a fictionalized account of her survival and the atrocities she endured.