Introduction: The Ideological Ramifi cations of Narrative Strategies

[...]these choices are "highly semanticized and engaged in the process of cultural construction" (Nünning 2000: 360). Given such a wide definition of the term "ideology" it is difficult to think of a choice or narrative strategy that does not carry any ideological weight. Since ideologies always exist in practices or rituals, that is, in our behavior, they are of course also expressed through the stories we tell one another. [...]Sue J. Kim addresses the ideological implications of the narrative techniques used in Cambodian American memoirs such as Haing Ngor's Survival in the Killing Fields (1987/2003); Chanrithy Him's When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up under the Khmer Rouge (2000); Loung Ung's First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (2000) and Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind (2005); as well as Sichan Siv's Golden Bones: An Extraordinary Journey from Hell in Cambodia to a New Life in America (2008). [...]Person Narrative as a Test Case for Narratology: The Limits of Realism."