Shadow Over Angkor
by Sihanouk Norodom & Julio A. Jeldres
First part of King Norodom Sihanouk's memoirs
- Authors
- Sihanouk Norodom & Julio A. Jeldres
- Publisher
- Monument Books | Proofreading by Darryl Collins. Foreword by King Norodom Sihamoni.
- Published
- 2005
- Book Edition
- Vol I. of King Sihanouk's Memoir.
- Pages
- 303
- Language
- English
- Formats
- ADB Physical Library, hardback
Collected from conversations and personal papers by Ambassador Julio A. Jeldres, the King of Cambodia’s Private Secretary for many years, this is a documented account of domestic political tension and complex navigation on an international scene dominated by the Cold War and the Vietnam War. Among a rich corpus of notations on internal and international politics, one chapter is poetically titled “Voir Angkor et mourir”, To See Angkor and Die! (which was to be also the title of the King’s 1993 feature movie).
Excerpts: “See Angkor and die! Yes, as a poet expressed it so well on an Angkorian stele: “My eyes, you may close… for that charming being will never for a moment be absent from my thoughts … “. The Angkorian poet was in love with an Apsara (heavenly dancing girl). All Khmers are in love with Angkor. They may disagree and tear each other apart. Each clique wishes to have its own ‘national flag but Angkor Wat, the purest gem of Angkor, remains for ever engraved on their hearts, on their minds and on the flags of the White Khmers (royalists, neutralists), the Blue Khmers (pro-American republicans) and the Red Khmers (pro-Chinese), and of the communist pro-Vietnamese, pro-Soviet Khmers (pp 182 – 183).
On the perilous journey to the “liberated zone of Cambodia” in March 1973, see the lively account Queen Mother Monineath (then Princess Monique) has given in her Witness to History (Phnom Penh, 2021). About the periple, King Sihanouk wil remark, quite tongue-in-cheek: “Once we had reached Cambodian territory we experienced, at all hours of the day and night, fierce but happily ineffective bombings and machine gunnings, by Mr. Nixon’s airforce.”
Tags: King Norodom Sihanouk, modern history, post-colonial Cambodia, China, neutrality, diplomacy, foreign affairs, Lon Nol, King Norodom Sihanouk Centennial Anniversary, non-aligned, neutralism
About the Authors
Sihanouk Norodom
HM Norodom Sihanouk នរោត្តម សីហនុ (31 October 1922, Phnom Penh, Cambodia – 15 October 2012, Beijing, China) was the King of Cambodia from 1941 to 1955 and from 1993 to 2004.
Affectionately known to the Cambodian people as Samdech Euv (សម្តេចឪ, Father Prince), he masterminded the independence from the French colonial rule in 1953, inspired the creative Golden Age of the young country and was instrumental to national reconciliation after the US-crafted coup d’état by General Lon Nol, the Khmer Rouge brutal rule and the Vietnamese intervention.
Married six times, he fathered fourteen children. His eldest son with Queen Norodom Monineath, King Norodom Sihamoni, ascended to the throne of Cambodia in 2004.
Julio A. Jeldres
Ambassador Julio Armando Jeldres (b. 1 Dec. 1950, Santiago de Chile) was a teenager in faraway Chile when, in 1967, he wrote directly to the King Palace of Cambodia wanting to know more about the fascinating Kingdom at the other end of the world. An epistolary relationship started, until the young Chilean met with King Norodom Sihanouk in Pyongyang at the start of the 1990s, becoming the “King Father“ ‘s personal secretary from 1981 to 1991, and Official Biographer from 1993 to the sovereign’s passing in 2012.
With a PhD in History from Monash University (2015), Julio Jeldres authored, amongst several books and essays, The Royal House of Cambodia (2003), a reference book on the Cambodian royal institution in modern times. An updated edition was released in 2013. Since then, he has served as a High Privy Counsellor to the Cabinet to HM King Sihamoni with rank of Minister of State, and remained a close adviser to HM the Queen Mother Norodom Monineath.
A specialist in the history of Cambodia’s diplomacy, Julio Jeldres studied the development of the Cambodian stance on neutrality and non-alignment, and authored an insightful study on the special relationship between the late King Norodom Sihanouk and and China’s Foreign Minister Zhou En Lai.
A Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Phnom Penh Sleuk Rith Institute of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), Ambassador Jeldres contributed to the establishment of the Queen Mother’s Library at the Royal Palace, which opened in 2021 (open to the public since June 2022).
In June 2022, Julio Jeldres honored Angkor Database by donating part of his personal book collection and archive to ADB library in Siem Reap.
A portrait by Loeung Yongsoeng, 2021, at the time of Jeldres’ publication of the 1973 Journal of the Queen Mother [courtesy of the author].
A portrait by Loeung Yongsoeng, 2021, at the time of Jeldres’ publication of the 1973 Journal of the Queen Mother [courtesy of the author].
Select Publications
[under construction]
- The Royal Palace and Cambodian Royal Life, Bangkok, Post Books, The Bangkok Post Publishing Plc., 1999, 132 p. [photos by Somkid Chaijitvanit].
- [with Béatrice Dayde Latham] Le palais du roi du Cambodge, Phnom Penh, Editions du Mékong, 2001.
- The Royal House of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Monument Books, 2003; expanded edition, Phnom Penh, 2013.
- Summary Biography of HM Preah Bat Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk, Phnom Penh, Royal Palace of Cambodia, 2013 [Commemoration Book, ENG & KH edition].
- [editor] Shadow Over Angkor: Memoirs of His Majesty King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, Vol. I, Phnom Penh, Monument Books, 2005, 303 p. ASIN B0DLT9R1MP.
- [history advisor] The Culinary Art of Cambodia តម្រាភោជនាហារ by HRH Norodom Rasmi Sobbhana, ed. by Bernard Cohen, Phnom Penh/Siem Reap, Angkor Database, augmented edition ENG/KH, 2021. ISBN 978−9924−9540−0−2.
- Norodom Sihanouk & Zhou Enlai, Phnom Penh, DC-Cam, 2021, 218 p.
- Witness to History: The Journal of Cambodia’s Queen Mother, 1973, Phnom Penh, DC-Cam, 2020.
- The First Royal Apsara, Phnom Penh, Princess Buppha Foundation, 2022, 184 p.
- King-Father Norodom Sihanouk and the Francophonie, Phnom Penh, Queen Mother Library/DC-Cam, 2026, 24 p. [ENG & FR editions].
Read a bioportrait by Brent Crane, ‘Sihanouk and the Teen from Santiago’ [ The Phnom Penh Post, 2016].