Dẻmaz Tep Baker was born and raised in Cambodia. She spent two years at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, where she obtained a Diploma in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language). Upon her return to her country, she was assigned to teach French and English in a Cambodian High School and, briefly after, became Director of the Public Affairs office at the Department of Education in Phnom Penh. After the Khmer Republic fell to the communist’s party in 1975 which was followed by the killing of more than two million innocent Cambodians, she arrived in Washington DC in 1976. Working for the Federal Government (DoD), she enrolled in night school and earned a Bachelor and a Master’ s degrees in Business Administration. She did not stop there. Having a culinary “flair” for Cambodian cooking, after eight years of teaching Cambodian cooking classes in Arlington County, VA, she published a cookbook A Taste of Cambodian Cuisine in 2009 (on sale at Amazon.) Her residence in Annandale, VA, was the center of entertainments to showcase her talents in authentic Cambodian cuisine to her international friends. After working at the Department of Defense for twenty-five years, she retired in 2004, but she continued to keep herself busy working in the private sector for another fourteen years. At the same time her interest had shifted from cooking to writing Cambodian Folktale Stories. She is the author of Khmer Legends (2009), Khmer Legends Part II (2016) in which she included several nostalgic poems from her country. She finally retired from the private sector in 2016 to enjoy her four beautiful grandchildren. Dẻmaz Baker seems to have endless energy. She is an avid tennis player and never passes up an offer to compete with her friends. Feeling restless these last five months, she decided to reinvigorate her love for writing, and has decided to write Khmer Legends Part III.
Khmer Legends: Part III
by Dẻmaz Baker
Khmer Legends: Part III
by Dẻmaz Baker
Published Nov 09, 2022
107 Pages
Genre: YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Comics & Graphic Novels / Diversity & Multicultural
Book Details
Khmer Legends Part III is Dẻmaz’s new collection of Cambodian folktales, one of which is the famous story of A-Lẻv. The narrative is about a boy born of poor and uneducated parents. At the age of seven, A-Lẻv already understood the meaning of being deprived of even the basic necessities of survival. He wanted to make a difference, not only for his parents but also for himself. From a teenager to an adult, his shrewd brain concocted mischievous, hilarious schemes to cheat people out of their belongings or to gain money so his parents could survive. He created trials and tribulations in doing so just to amuse himself. As years went by, he had a firm desire to educate himself by beginning to learn to read and write in order to deal with a high society that flaunted its wealth and status upon the poor and less fortunate. In the end, his humility and humbleness gained him more respect in the society that rejected him because of his low economic status.
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