Camron Wright

"The Rent Collector," by Camron Wright, is the heartrending but ultimately inspiring story of a poor couple, Sang Ly and her husband, Ki Lim, who eke out a living at Stung Meanchey, a large and putrid municipal waste dump in Phnom Penh. Their baby boy, Nisay, is often ill, but what child would thrive in such a toxic and dangerous environment? Ki regularly picks through trash to find items that he can sell to pay for food and rent. Their home is a shed near the landfill; they eat mostly rice and occasionally manage to purchase a bit of meat or a few vegetables. Sang Ly and Ki Lim are illiterate and have no expectations of improving their situation.

One person they dread seeing is Sopeap Sin, a drunken old woman who gruffly collects their monthly rent. It is difficult enough for Sang Ly and Ki Lim scrape together money to keep their family from starving and to purchase medicine for their sickly son, much less hand over their tiny remaining income to a landowner for the privilege of dwelling in a pathetic hovel. Everything changes when Sang Ly unexpectedly discovers that Sopeap Sin was once a teacher at university. The young mother persuades the cantankerous rent collector to give her reading lessons and, little by little, the two form a powerful bond. Sang Ly, who is quick study, not only relishes deciphering words, but she comes to realize that certain works of literature can enlighten and elevate those who take the time to understand them and explore their depth and beauty. Sopeap says to her pupil, "Words provide a voice to our deepest feelings."

Wright alludes to the horrendous consequences of the Cambodian genocide under the brutal dictator, Pol Pot, and the Khmer Rouge. As a counterpoint to this unspeakable tragedy, the scenes between Sopeap Sin and Sang Ly are moving, meaningful, and lyrical. The author fills in some details about Sopeap's melancholy history, and explains how she ended up weary, cynical, and addicted to alcohol. The book's central image is a phoenix rising from the ashes. This symbolizes that even while poverty, starvation, and disease afflict millions all over the world, there are still indomitable and courageous individuals who try to help the oppressed and impoverished. These special people believe, as the timeless saying goes, that it is better to light a single candle than it is to curse the darkness. "The Rent Collector" is sentimental at times, but Wright absorbs us with his unforgettable depiction of a stark and forbidding world that few ever get to see.… (more)

I have had several thoughts while reading this fictionalized account of a family living on the outskirts of the municipal dump in Cambodia. Sang Ly and Ki are parents to a chronically ill child in a tarpaper shack. They make a very meager living by picking through the trash in the dump. The woman who collects their rent is a frequently drunk old woman with a surly personality named Sopeap.

When Ki brings home a tattered children's book salvaged from the dump and Sopeap sees it, their lives begin to change. Sang Ly asks Sopeap to teach her to read. Thus begins a discourse on literature that took me back to my college lit seminars. It seemed that Sang Ly learned not only to read, but to hold discourses on what she had read with Sopeap. I have had adult literacy students for many years, and this speedy transition seems implausible.

I found the parts about the Khmer Rouge revolution very interesting when the most educated were killed to advance the propaganda making a better life for the uneducated to thrive. Sopeap was a university English teacher able to take on another's identity to escape the killings. The Cambodian fables were lovely, as were their messages.

There are pictures included of the actual waste site, Sang Ly, her family and other trash pickers. I hope that they were recompensed in some way for their contributions to the fictionalized story of their lives. All in all, I had to suspend disbelief too frequently to give this more than 3 stars.… (more)

This is a gripping story about a young boy in India who is kidnapped and sold to a Christian orphanage, then adopted and raised by an American couple. Through a series of coincidences, years later he is reunited with his family. Though the story is not as tightly written as Wright's other novel, The Rent Collector, it's still a fascinating story due to the fact that it is true. With the billions of people on this planet, the fact that he was able to make his way back to a small village in India is nothing short of a miracle.… (more)

Sang Ly and her husband, Ki Lim live in Stung Meanchey, the largest municipal waste dump in Cambodia with their infant son, Nisay.

Uneducated and unable to retain work that pays enough to pay for normal housing, Sang Ly and Ki Lim moved to Stung Meanchey and are "pickers," they literally pick through garbage daily in hopes to find enough good waste to sell to buy food for the day and save for their rent. Yes, they pay rent for their three-sided temporary structure made out of cardboard and tarps.

When the Cow, the name given to Sopeap Sin, the Rent Collector comes by to collect rent, Sang Ly recognizes the woman can read. Striking a bargain with Sopeap Sin, whom she will learn is a former university teacher, Sang Ly hopes that by learning to read, she can give her son, Nisay a better life.

Camron Wright has penned an incredible story about a once-real place (the living quarters of Stung Meanchey and other waste sites have been closed) and the lives these people live and their struggle to simply survive. The characters are so likable and so grateful for every tiny little thing they find and own, it is hard not to look at one's self as glutenous and short-sided.

The Rent Collector is fabulous and the tales within the story are wonderful. This book should sit on everyone's shelf.… (more)