The Dead Eye and the Deep Blue Sea

March 15, 2018
A harrowing graphic memoir by a Cambodian survivor of human trafficking.As a boy, Prum loved drawing and showed obvious talent. "One of my first memories is of drawing pictures of Bruce Lee in the dirt in front of our house," he writes, a memory captured in finely etched detail toward the beginning of his powerful memoir. As a teenager, he had run away from his boyhood home, determined to escape the brutalities of his stepfather. Since there was no money in drawing, Prum became a soldier and then a monk. Discovering that life in the monastery didn't suit him, and realizing art alone could not support him, he found work harvesting crops. There he met his wife, and soon she became pregnant, forcing the author to find more reliable work to support his family. He learned about a better-paying opportunity within the Thai fishing industry, but by the time he boarded his ship, he realized that instead of finding the higher pay the middle man had promised, he had been sold into slavery. He wouldn't see his wife or even his native Cambodia again for five years: "Three years and seven months on a boat, four months on the plantation, one month in the hospital, and eight months in Malaysian police stations and jails." On the boat, he witnessed a decapitation and other slaves thrown overboard when they were too sick to work. His escape to Malaysia led him to corrupt police who resold him to work on the plantation, where the owner was protected by the legal system. He was incarcerated "for illegal migration" before he agreed to lie to clear the plantation owner and returned home to a wife who didn't recognize or believe him--until he rendered this graphic account. "And so I drew my way back into my family home," he explains.Excellent drawing accompanies a remarkable story of persistence--and yet the artist still has trouble making a living in his native Cambodia, while human trafficking on land and sea continues to flourish.

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March 26, 2018
This firsthand account of modern slavery, told in powerful, detailed full-color drawings that feel as if they’ve been inscribed in blood, opens a window on a world rarely acknowledged. Cambodian artist Prum begins with his childhood and time studying in a monastery, then shares how he left his village and his pregnant wife in search of work, only to end up being captured and sold into slavery twice, first to a fishing boat, then a landowner. For five years, he was held captive along with others who had been deceived and trafficked from Cambodia and other countries. But his artistic talent, first noticed and encouraged by a Vietnamese soldier when Prum was a boy, proved to be an essential means of survival: Prum draws for food, for safety, and his own sanity. Drawings become his only way to explain his story to loved ones, upon his return home. This graphic memoir tells the urgent truth that slavery persists in contemporary times and asks readers to question their unknowing participation as consumers in the global trade systems that sustain it. Prum displays a great generosity of spirit in putting his pain to the page; as he says, he now “has a wound that will never heal.” The seas teem with men like Prum; this book makes them visible, through his unique story.

June 1, 2018

Meet one of the 40 million people held in 21st-century slavery, worldwide. A Cambodian self-taught artist and laborer, Prum tried to enter Thailand to find work but was sold for slave labor into the Malaysian fishing industry. His chilling memoir shows step by step how easily free people can be exploited when the financial need is great--Prum's wife was pregnant--and jobs are scarce. Injury, starvation, torture, and risk of murder became the lot of Prum and his fellow slaves. Only trading his art for cash and advantages kept him going, until after nearly five years, a Cambodian human rights organization helped him escape. Prum's great skill with colorful pencils and inks makes his ordeal captivating in character detail, background, and folk art-style design. Each vivid, tapestry-like panel fills a page, with small text blocks on the side, while accompanying essays provide additional context. This visually handsome work tells of great ugliness via a nail-biter tale of heroism. Explicit violence, nudity, and rape are depicted blatantly as normal and expected for enslaved people. VERDICT An essential wake-up call for adults and high schoolers about the present-day misery lurking behind comfy, tech-enhanced modern life.--Martha Cornog, Philadelphia

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2018
According to 2016 International Labor Organization data, at least 40 million people are held in servitude. Among these modern-day slaves was Prum, a Cambodian man whose determination to finance his pregnant wife's impending hospital stay sent him away from their village to find work. Desperate and vulnerable, Prum is trafficked and sold to a Thai fishing boat. Amid inhumane conditions, Prum finds release in inking elaborate tattoos?with fishhook, soot, and toothpaste?on himself and fellow slaves. Using fish sauce containers as floats, Prum eventually jumps ship, only to be captured and sold to a Malaysian plantation. After five brutal years, an NGO finally enables Prum's freedom. A self-taught artist, Prum began to create his stark black-and-white scenes to draw his way home. Since he was missing for so long, his wife was initially too shocked and suspicious to accept his return. His resonant panels become indelible testimony to prove his experiences, not just for his family but also for the rest of the world. In recognition of his work, he ultimately received a State Department Human Rights Defender Award.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)