VADDEY RATNER was five years old when the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975. After four years, having endured forced labor, starvation, and near-execution, she and her mother escaped while many of her family members perished. In 1981, she arrived in the U.S. as a refugee not knowing English and, in 1990, was her high school class's valedictorian in Minnesota. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Cornell University, where she specialized in Southeast Asian history and literature. In recent years she has traveled and lived in Cambodia and Southeast Asia, writing and researching, which has resulted in her debut novel, In the Shadow of the Banyan. She lives in Potomac, Maryland, with her husband and daughter.