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Cambodian Literature: From Angkor to Year Zero and Beyond
Photo: Sharon May, “Bayon, Cambodia” (2009)
It has been forty years since the black-clad Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh during the Khmer New Year of April 1975 and evacuated the city, sending its inhabitants on foot to work and starve in labor camps in the countryside, initiating “Year Zero.” Literature, art, and religion were abolished. The Khmer language itself was changed. The ability to read and write, knowledge of a foreign language, even the wearing of eyeglasses, could get one killed. During the regime, between 1975 and ’79, nearly two million people—out of a population of only seven million—died of starvation, disease, torture, and execution. According to one estimate, less than one percent of intellectuals survived. Most estimate about ten percent of artists survived; the same applies to books. Out of six hundred librarians, only three remained. During the Khmer Rouge period the Buddhist monasteries—traditional repositories of learning and literature—were ransacked and converted to prisons. The National Library was used to raise pigs. In the words of activist Vannath Chea, “The arts are like women: the first to be degraded in poverty and war.”
Cambodia is a small heart-shaped country—about the size of the US state of Washington—set in between Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and the Gulf of Thailand. In the northwest lies the great lake of the Tonle Sap, on whose edges rise the magnificent temples of Angkor. This civilization flourished between the ninth and fifteenth centuries, and recent archeological mapping has revealed that Angkor was in fact the largest pre-industrial city in the world. In 1863, Cambodia became a protectorate of France; it gained independence in 1953, only to become inadvertently caught up in the American war in Vietnam. The US heavily bombed Cambodia in the 1960s and ’70s, before the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975.
While Cambodia is famous for the “killing fields” of the Khmer Rouge and for the temples of Angkor, it is less known for its writing. Nevertheless, Cambodia possesses a rich literature—both oral and written—and had a thriving community of writers before the war. This issue includes examples of this material, rarely translated into English, from the Angkor era through the Khmer Rouge regime and afterward.
The earliest recorded writings in Cambodia are stone inscriptions in Sanskrit, dating back to the fifth century. We are fortunate to have a translation of one of these inscriptions, composed at the pinnacle of the Angkor era by Queen Indradevi, celebrated as one of Cambodia’s first known female poets. Her poem (c. 1190–1200 AD) was carved into the Great Stele of Phimeanakas. Indradevi’s words are brought to life by translator Trent Walker, who chants the queen’s Sanskrit in Khmer style.
By the fourteenth century, Khmer had replaced Sanskrit as the official language. Classical Khmer represents the metaphysical union between Indian Brahmin and native Khmer of Cambodia’s creation myths. It combines the multisyllabic vocabulary of Pali and Sanskrit with the largely monosyllabic, highly alliterative and onomatopoeic native vocabulary. Classical Khmer poetry has about fifty forms, using complex meters and intricate rhyme schemes.
The epics, composed in thousands of stanzas, could take days to chant. These classics were recorded between the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries. The most famous epic poem in Cambodia is the Reamker , the Cambodian version of the Indian Ramayana, which has been recited, sung, and danced in various forms for centuries. Other epic poems include Lpoek Angkor Vat (The Story of Angkor Wat), which celebrates the Angkor temples; the Jataka tales, stories of the former lives of the Buddha; and the Tum Teav, based on a seventeenth-century tragic love story, considered Cambodia’s Romeo and Juliet. The classic tale of separated lovers would become the subject of many of Cambodia’s later modern novels.
Modern Cambodian literature began to emerge in the early nineteenth century. Khmer poet and scholar Ukñā Suttantaprījā Ind (1859–1924) was a pivotal figure. His poem Journey to Angkor Wat describes his travels to attend King Sisowath’s arrival at the Angkor temples in 1909. The manuscript represents a transitional period in literature, between “tradition” and “modernity.” Possibly commissioned by the King, it was discovered posthumously, and the first edition was published by the Buddhist Institute. In the excerpt translated here, the poet’s recounting of the river journey becomes a meditation on life, desire, and impermanence.
The Buddhist Institute, which printed Ukñā Suttantaprījā Ind’s famous Gatilok and other literature, became the nation’s first publisher in the early 1900s. Khmer-language newspapers and journals first appeared in the 1920s, although the first Khmer-owned and operated newspaper, Naggaravatta (Angkor Wat) did not appear until 1937. The first Khmer modern novel also appeared in the 1930s. A new Khmer term was invented for the novel, pralomlok, which means a story that is written to seduce the hearts of human beings. Many of these early works featured ill-fated lovers and contained moral and social critique. As was common for the era in Southeast Asia, and for writers such as Dickens and Tolstoy earlier in Europe, most novels were first serialized in newspapers or journals. Among the early novels still read today are The Waters of Tonle Sap by Kim Hak, The Tale of Sophat by Rim Kim, The Rose of Pailin by Nhok Them, and Wilted Flower by Nou Hach. Literature became linked with national identity, as quoted in the journal Kambuja Surya , “If its writing disappears, the nation vanishes.”
Following Cambodia’s independence in the mid-twentieth century, literacy, education and publication expanded. Songwriting became a literary form. This was the heyday of Cambodian rock and roll, the “golden” voice of Sinn Sisamouth, and a vibrant, sophisticated community of writers and intellectuals, fluent in both Khmer and French, who were creating new Khmer literature and national consciousness. This literary community was also threatened by censorship, disappearances, assassinations, the closing down of publications, and the war that was spilling over from neighboring Vietnam. After the 1970 coup, which deposed Prince Sihanouk, civil war ensued between the Khmer Republic and the Khmer Rouge.
Kham Pun Kimny, featured in this issue, wrote about urban and political life in a surreal, satirical style during this tumultuous time. He was one of the first writers Soth Polin hired for his newspaper Nokor Thom . “Crazy for Wandering” comes from Kham Pun Kimny’s collection, Control Yourself: Don’t Cry, Don’t Laugh—Philosophies of the Strange and Absurd. Not long after the book’s publication, he disappeared.
On April 17, 1975, less than four decades after the publication of Cambodia’s first novel, the flourishing of Cambodian literature and scholarship abruptly ended with the Khmer Rouge takeover. Writing of a personal nature was completely prohibited. To dare to write risked one’s life. The diary of Oum Sophany is one of the few personal accounts known to have been written while the Khmer Rouge were in power. Laura Jean McKay’s essay, “The Keeper,” featured in this issue, tells the story of Oum Sophany and quotes passages from her remarkable diary.
On January 7, 1979, Vietnamese-backed troops ousted the Khmer Rouge. The handful of artists and writers who survived found themselves in a shattered country. The nation’s infrastructure had been destroyed, and the land seeded with mines and unexploded ordnance. There was widespread poverty and illiteracy. In addition, writers faced censorship, years of lost education, and a lack of printing presses; spare parts, ink, and even paper were hard to come by.
Considering all this, it is surprising that anyone wrote at all. But people did, among them Oum Sophany. Almost as soon as the Khmer Rouge regime ended, a new literature began to appear: novels were handwritten, often in pencil, on the cheap graph-lined paper of student notebooks, then photocopied or recopied by hand and rented out by the day at market stalls. Many memoirs also have been published over the decades, both inside and outside of Cambodia.
As for the former generation of writers, we are fortunate to have the work of three who survived the war and continue to write: U Sam Oeur, Kong Bunchheoun, and Soth Polin.
U Sam Oeur began singing poems as a child while herding water buffalo and received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1968, after which he returned to Cambodia. He survived the Khmer Rouge years by feigning illiteracy and pretending at times to be deaf and dumb. “I could not speak,” he says. “Even though people asked, Are you deaf? Are you mute? I always shook my head. There were no words. Just work and work. No talking. No looking at anyone. No looking at the sky, nothing.” He translated Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass into Khmer and is one of the first Cambodian poets to write in free verse. He believed this break from the rigid structures of classical Khmer poetry was necessary in order to convey the sorrow of the war. Even so, he still chants his poetry in traditional Khmer style. In this issue he is featured chanting with rap artist praCh in a unique poetic collaboration. His prose piece, “Silkworms,” recalls a time in his youth when he helped his mother raise silkworms during the Japanese occupation of Cambodia from 1942 to 1943.
Kong Bunchheoun, born in Battambang province, began his long writing career as a novelist, playwright, poet, and lyricist in the 1950s in Phnom Penh. He escaped execution during the Khmer Rouge time thanks to a cadre who had read his novels and testified to his “profound sense of social justice.” He continues to be one of Cambodia’s most prolific writers. “The Shade of the Tenth Coconut Tree” is among the many songs he wrote for Sinn Sisamouth in the 1970s inspired by the Sangkae River.
Cambodia’s strong oral tradition of poetry and storytelling is carried on today by traditional artists such as the bluesy, improvisational chapey master Kong Nay, known as the Ray Charles of Cambodia, and by a younger generation of spoken-word and rap artists, among them praCh. Called “Cambodia’s first rap star” by Newsweek, praCh was born in Cambodian refugee camps at the end of the war. In the tracks featured in this issue, he collaborates with Master Kong Nay and poet U Sam Oeur.
Soth Polin learned to read and write from his great-grandfather, the poet Nou Kan, and began writing novels, short stories and philosophical tales in the 1960s. He survived the Khmer Rouge because he had fled for refuge to Paris after a friend’s assassination in 1974; he lived in France for a decade before going to the U.S. “When you lose your country, you lose everything,” he said. “If you are a writer, you no longer have the echo of your readers.” In France, he survived by driving a taxi. He published one novel in French, The Anarchist , an excerpt of which is featured in this issue.
The devastation of the Khmer Rouge period continues to impact writers today. Writers still must contend with high illiteracy rates, lack of availability of books, lack of mentors, scarcity of publishers and the absence of a central publication distribution network. Some have turned to online publishing. Many self-publish their work, through photocopies or on Facebook and blogs. Others write video scripts and song lyrics. Government-sponsored literary prizes and nongovernmental organizations provide some support. The Nou Hach Literary Project publishes Nou Hach Literary Journal, conducts literary awards, and holds creative-writing workshops and conferences. PEN Cambodia also supports writers through workshops and publication.
The Center for Khmer Studies is instrumental in Khmer scholarship. The Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), under the direction of Youk Chhang, has gathered hundreds of thousands of documents, photos, films, and interviews, as well as published several books, including translations of world literature into Khmer, and the famous Tum Teav into English.
In addition, an increasing number of Cambodian filmmakers are making their mark, foremost among them award-winning Rithy Panh, who helped create the Bophana Center in Phnom Penh, which preserves Cambodia’s film, photographic and audio history. Named for Rithy Panh’s film Bophana: A Cambodian Tragedy , which tells the story of the forbidden love letters of Hout Bophana and Ly Sitha, the center also trains Cambodian filmmakers, many of whom have won awards in their own right.
The resilience of Cambodian writers, past and present, cannot be overstated. The loss of family, friends, mentors, education, country, home—even of paper, printing presses, and ink—none have stopped Cambodians from pursuing the illusive, seductive and demanding vocation of writing. “I hope our art continues. I think it will survive,” Soth Polin says. “There will be another generation of writers. But right now, what we have lost is indescribable. Khun Srun, Hak Chhay Hok, Chou Thani, Kem Sat . . . They are gone . . . What we have lost is not reconstructable. An epoch is finished. So when we have literature again, it will be a new literature.”
Some of the material in this essay was drawn from “In the Shadow of Angkor: A Search for Cambodian Literature” and author interviews that first appeared in In the Shadow of Angkor: Contemporary Writing from Cambodia (Manoa: An International Journal/University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004).
© Sharon May. All rights reserved.
Sharon May researched the Khmer Rouge regime for Columbia…
Sky of the Lost Moon
The keeper: oum sophany, the anarchist.
Translation of "review" into Khmer
ពិនិត្យឡើងវិញ, រៀនសាឡើងវិញ [c are the top translations of "review" into Khmer. Sample translated sentence: How can we benefit from reviewing the way Jehovah saved the Israelites? ↔ តើ យើង អាច ទទួល ប្រយោជន៍ អ្វី ពី ការ ពិចារណា អំពី របៀប ដែល ព្រះ យេហូវ៉ា បាន សង្គ្រោះ ជន ជាតិ អ៊ីស្រាអែល?
A second or subsequent reading of a text or artifact. [..]
English-Khmer dictionary
ពិនិត្យឡើងវិញ, រៀនសាឡើងវិញ [c.
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Automatic translations of " review " into Khmer
Translations with alternative spelling
"Review" in English - Khmer dictionary
Currently we have no translations for Review in the dictionary, maybe you can add one? Make sure to check automatic translation, translation memory or indirect translations.
Images with "review"
Phrases similar to "review" with translations into khmer.
- Document Review មើលឯកសារឡើងវិញ
Translations of "review" into Khmer in sentences, translation memory
(Cambodian)
Google Bing
Kod Wikipedia Google search
• Kheng : Khmer-English dictionary (+ audio)
• Kod : Khmer-English dictionary
• Biology dictionary , English-Khmer , edited by the Royal University of Phnom Penh (2013)
• Khmérologie : language & culture of Cambodia, by Pascal Médeville (blog)
• Petit dictionnaire cambodgien-français : Khmer-French dictionary (2015)
• Mots français utilisés en khmer : French words used in Khmer (2014)
• Mots anglais utilisés en khmer : English words used in Khmer (2016)
• Vocabulaire culinaire khmer-français-anglais-chinois : Khmer-French-English-Chinese culinary vocabulary (2014)
• Loecsen : Cambodian-English common phrases (+ audio)
• Defense Language Institute : basic vocabulary (+ audio) - civil affairs - medical
• Dictionnaire cambodgien-français : Cambodian-French dictionary, by Jean-Baptiste Bernard (1902)
• Vocabulaire français-cambodgien : Cambodian-French vocabulary, by Jean Moura (1878) (Latin script)
• Remarks on Sanskrit and Pali loanwords in Khmer by Piotr Woźnica, in Investigationes linguisticæ (2010)
• Sentences et proverbes cambodgiens by Adrien Pannetier, in Bulletin de l'école française d'Extrême-Orient (1967)
• Notes ethnobotaniques sur quelques plantes en usage au Cambodge by Jules Vidal, Gabrielle Martel, Saveros Lewitz, in Bulletin de l'école française d'Extrême-Orient (1969)
• La toponymie khmère by Saveros Lewitz, in Bulletin de l'école française d'Extrême-Orient (1967)
• Les noms de monuments khmers by Saveros Pou, in Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient (1991)
• Noms personnels et termes d'adresse au Cambodge by Anne-Yvonne Guillou (1999)
→ Khmer keyboard to type a text with the Khmer script
• SeaSite : Khmer characters & vocabulary, common phrases, grammar (+ audio)
• Cambodian basic course , Foreign Service Institute (1966) (+ audio)
• Cambodian contemporary (1972)
• YouTube , Cambodian school : Khmer course (videos)
• The establishment of the national language in 20 th century Cambodia: debates on orthography and coinage , by Sasagawa Hideo, in Southeast Asian Studies (2015)
• A typological description of Khmer by Kristina Jenkins (2013)
• Cambodian system of writing and beginning reader with drills and glossary , by Franklin Huffman (1970)
• Phonological principles and automatic phonemic and phonetic of Khmer words by Makara Sok, master thesis (2016)
• The standard Khmer vowel system : an acoustic study , by Vatho Chem, in Cambodia Journal of basic and applied research (2020)
• Research report on phonetic and phonological analysis of Khmer (2008)
• studies about the Khmer language, by Michel Antelme
• Note on the transliteration of Khmer (2002)
• Note sur la translittération du cambodgien by Saveros Lewitz, in Bulletin de l'école française d'Extrême-Orient (1969)
• Notre transcription du cambodgien by Louis Finot, in Bulletin de l'école française d'Extrême-Orient (1902)
• Descriptions linguistiques du khmer by Joseph Deth Thach, in Péninsule (2012)
• Essai de phonétique historique du khmer by Michel Ferlus, in Mon-Khmer studies (1992)
• Les termes grammaticaux du vieux khmer (6 th -14 th centuries), by Saveros Pou, in Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient (1996)
• Le rôle du sanskrit dans le développement de la langue khmère : une étude épigraphique du VI e au XIV e siècle , by Kunthea Chhom, thesis (2016)
• Grammaire de la langue khmère by Georges Maspéro (1915)
• RFI - VOA - RFA : news in Cambodian
• Bible Cambodia
• YouVersion : translation of the Bible into Khmer (2005)
• translation by Arthur Hammond (1954)
មនុស្សទាំងអស់ កើតមកមានសេរីភាព និងសមភាព ក្នុងផ្នែកសេចក្ដីថ្លៃថ្នូរនិងសិទ្ធិ។ មនុស្ស មានវិចារណញ្ញាណនិងសតិសម្បជញ្ញៈ ជាប់ពីកំណើត ហើយគប្បីប្រព្រឹត្ដចំពោះគ្នាទៅវិញទៅមក ក្នុង ស្មារតីភាតរភាពជាបង។
→ Universal Declaration of Human Rights : bilingual text, in Cambodian , English & other languages (or PDF version)
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- Introduction
Classical literature
French influence.
Khmer literature
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- Table Of Contents
Khmer literature , body of literary works of Khmer peoples of Southeast Asia , mainly Cambodia .
The classical literature of Cambodia comprises works composed in verse and recorded between the 16th and mid-19th century; much of it reflects the cultural influence of India. It can be classified according to three major genres: the epic , verse novels, and cbap , or “codes of conduct.”
The best-known epic is the Reamker (“Honour of Rama”; Eng. trans. Reamker ), the Cambodian version of the Ramayana , one of the great epic poems of India. Surviving texts of the Reamker date from the 16th or 17th century, but bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat show that the Rama (Cambodian Ream) story had been known in Cambodia for centuries. The Cambodian version includes incidents and details not found in the Sanskrit original written by the poet Valmiki. As in other Southeast Asian countries, the Rama story in Cambodia is not confined to the realm of literature but extends to all Cambodian art forms, from sculpture to dance drama and from painting to tourist art. Another epic, Lpoek Angkor Vat (“The Story of Angkor Wat”), which dates from the beginning of the 17th century, celebrates the magnificent temple complex at Angkor and describes the bas-reliefs in the temple galleries that portray the Rama story.
Verse novels emerged during the early 18th century. They are usually long, in some instances consisting of as many as 8,000 stanzas. Most are based on the jataka tales (stories of the former lives of the Buddha, found widely in Southeast Asian literature), while others draw on local folktales and legends . One of the best-known is Tum Teav , a tragic love story believed to be based on real events that occurred during the 17th century. The story was passed down orally and then eventually recorded in the 19th century by the poet Santhor Mok. It remains a widely known story that is taught in schools and often retold in comic-strip format. It has also been filmed on two occasions and has inspired stage adaptations and popular songs.
The cbap are didactic poems that were written by monks and used for moral instruction. The earliest surviving examples date from the 17th century, although the genre is believed to be considerably older. They were usually short, the shortest being only 29 stanzas, and passages from them are quoted as proverbs. They offer practical rules, based on Theravada Buddhist philosophy, for a wide variety of everyday activities, ranging from home economics and education to gender roles and government. In traditional Cambodian society, monks would use the cbap as texts for children to read, copy, and memorize.
Literature flourished during the reign of King Ang Duong (1841–60). The king, himself a renowned poet, brought together writers at his court who were involved not only in composing original works but also in revising old manuscripts and translating Buddhist texts from Pali into Khmer. After Cambodia became a French protectorate in 1863, the royal court continued to be the centre of literary production. French scholars began to take an interest in Cambodian culture and to collect and publish folktales, first in Paris and then in Cambodia. In 1930 they were involved in establishing the Buddhist Institute as a centre for the preservation and development of Cambodian national culture. The Buddhist Institute quickly became the main publisher in the country, bringing to readers works that had, until then, often been available only on palm-leaf manuscripts; its journal, Kambujasuriya , played a major role in publishing works of classical literature, religious works, folktales, and, later, novels; it also served as a forum for serious scholarship in Cambodia.
French cultural influence, the educational expansion that created a reading public, and the growth of print media all facilitated the emergence of the prose novel in Cambodia in the late 1930s. To these factors must also be added a nationalistic motive, for several early novelists were anxious to challenge the dominance of Chinese and Vietnamese novels in the street stalls. These novels represented a total break from traditional Cambodian literature, taking prose as their medium, ordinary people as their protagonists, and everyday situations for their setting.
Rim Kin’s Sophat , written in 1938 and published in Vietnam in 1941 but not available in Cambodia until January 1942, is widely regarded as the “first” Cambodian novel. It is essentially a poor boy–rich girl romance , in which the hero, Sophat, faces a series of obstacles, misunderstandings, and improbable coincidences before he learns that he is not a poor orphan but actually of noble birth; the novel duly ends happily with his marriage to the girl he loves, the adopted daughter of his father. Dik Danle Sap (“The Waters of Tonle Sap”), by Kim Hak, was also hailed as “the first modern novel of Cambodia” when it appeared in Kambujasuriya in January 1939, but it never enjoyed the same popularity and acclaim as Sophat . Two other classic novels from the same period have, like Sophat , been made into films and taught in schools. They are Nhok Them’s Kulap Pailin (“The Rose of Pailin”), first serialized in Kambujasuriya in 1943, and Phka srabon (“The Faded Flower”) by Nou Hach, first serialized in the weekly newspaper Kambuja in 1947. In the former a hardworking but lowly gem miner wins the hand of the mine owner’s daughter after proving his courage and integrity , in part by saving her life; the latter novel takes the traditional arranged marriage as its theme and ends tragically when the heroine falls terminally ill through depression because her mother insists on choosing her spouse. By the end of the French Protectorate in 1953, about 48 novels had appeared. Between 1954 and 1969, more than 500 novels were published, with almost half of them appearing in the years 1965 and 1966. Variations on the themes of arranged marriage and thwarted love continued to be popular; the twist in Hak Chhay Hok’s best-selling O phsaen maranah (1965; “The Fatal Smoke”) is that the rich heroine happily goes along with her parents’ choice, jilting the poor student who had earlier saved her life; he then falls sick, fails his exams, and dies. By the late 1960s, the political situation within Cambodia deteriorated and a sharp decline in literary production followed; some writers dared not write, while economic pressures also contributed to a reduction in the number of novels published. One well-known novel that did appear during this period was Nou Hach’s Mala tuon citt (“Garland of the Heart”), published in 1972 but written some 20 years earlier; the novel portrays Cambodian society during World War II and reflects the author’s nationalism .
In 1975 the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh; in almost four years in power they did little to foster literature, beyond the promotion of revolutionary songs glorifying the peasants and the new society they were supposedly building. Cambodian refugees in exile, especially in France, did write novels, short stories, and poems, typically depicting the suffering endured prior to and during hazardous escapes from Cambodia and the pain of exile and separation. One such “survival novel,” Vipatti knun samarabhumi sneha (1990; “Disaster in the Battlefield of Love”), written in the United States by Duong Ratha, is unusual for its portrayal of life in the Khmer Rouge “liberation zones” before the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975. Within Cambodia itself, a revival began to take place after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge regime; many of the novels that appeared in the 1980s reflected official attitudes to the recent past, with stories of Khmer Rouge atrocities, the sufferings of ordinary people, and the heroism of those, including the Vietnamese, who fought against the Khmer Rouge. Slik jhoe cak maek (1987; “The Leaves That Fall from the Trees”) by Kong Boun Chhouen, for example, depicts the cruelty of the Khmer Rouge through the experiences of Vanny, the seven-year-old heroine, who is saved from execution by liberating Vietnamese troops. Such overtly political fiction gave way in the early 1990s to more popular sentimental novels and crime fiction. Mao Somnang’s prizewinning Ralak pok khsac (1996; “The Waves”), for example, in which the poor, orphaned heroine eventually overcomes a succession of obstacles, to find love and happiness, is typical of the kind of plot that had been popular almost half a century earlier; where it differs, is in a greater reliance on dialogue and the introduction of minor characters and subplots, reflecting the author’s profession as a television scriptwriter.
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- Knowledge Base
Methodology
- How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates
How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates
Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.
What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .
There are five key steps to writing a literature review:
- Search for relevant literature
- Evaluate sources
- Identify themes, debates, and gaps
- Outline the structure
- Write your literature review
A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.
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Table of contents
What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.
- Quick Run-through
- Step 1 & 2
When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:
- Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
- Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
- Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
- Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
- Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.
Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.
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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.
- Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
- Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
- Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
- Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)
You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.
Download Word doc Download Google doc
Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .
If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .
Make a list of keywords
Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.
- Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
- Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
- Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth
Search for relevant sources
Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:
- Your university’s library catalogue
- Google Scholar
- Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
- Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
- EconLit (economics)
- Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)
You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.
Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.
You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.
For each publication, ask yourself:
- What question or problem is the author addressing?
- What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
- What are the key theories, models, and methods?
- Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
- What are the results and conclusions of the study?
- How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?
Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.
You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.
Take notes and cite your sources
As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.
It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.
To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:
- Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
- Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
- Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
- Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
- Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?
This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.
- Most research has focused on young women.
- There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
- But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.
There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).
Chronological
The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.
Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.
If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.
For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.
Methodological
If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:
- Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
- Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
- Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources
Theoretical
A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.
You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.
Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.
The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.
Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.
As you write, you can follow these tips:
- Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
- Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
- Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
- Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts
In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.
When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !
This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.
Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.
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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.
- Sampling methods
- Simple random sampling
- Stratified sampling
- Cluster sampling
- Likert scales
- Reproducibility
Statistics
- Null hypothesis
- Statistical power
- Probability distribution
- Effect size
- Poisson distribution
Research bias
- Optimism bias
- Cognitive bias
- Implicit bias
- Hawthorne effect
- Anchoring bias
- Explicit bias
A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .
It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.
There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:
- To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
- To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
- To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
- To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
- To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic
Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.
The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .
A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .
An annotated bibliography is a list of source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a paper .
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McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved September 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/
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For a brief moment in November 2015, the sleepy town of Kampot in southwestern Cambodia became a national literary hub.
The inaugural edition of the Writers and Readers Festival hosted discussions about Cambodian literature and culture. There were tales of Buddhist death rituals, of life deep inside the rainforest, of a cross-country pilgrimage undertaken by a clown. But, for the most part, the discussions were about Cambodia, rather than by Cambodians: slightly fewer than half of the country-specific talks featured local speakers.
The festival coincided with the launch of the Mekong Review , a polished quarterly journal modelled on the London Review of Books. The first issue evinced a similar dearth of indigenous voices. Despite being headquartered in Phnom Penh, only one Cambodian name appeared in the index: Polin Soth, a Khmer author who has lived abroad since 1974. The piece included was not contemporary, but an extract of his 1980 novel L’Anarchiste , translated from its original French.
“I have experimented with trying to get [local] writers to contribute, but it’s a lot of work,” says Minh Bui Jones, the Mekong Review’s Australian editor-in-chief. “[Literary culture in] Cambodia is a long way behind not just the rest of Asia but the rest of the Mekong region [which comprises China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam].”
It is hard to think of a country whose cultural community, specifically, has experienced the kind of devastation that Cambodia’s has. Between 1975 and 1979, the ruling party, the Khmer Rouge, perpetuated a regime of terror that purged the country of its educated classes: being literate, understanding a foreign language, even wearing glasses, was a potential death sentence. The most widely accepted estimate is that only 10 per cent of the nation’s artists and intellectuals survived those brutal years. Many who did — like Soth — did so by fleeing the country and not coming back.
Nearly 40 years on, the regeneration of many artistic spheres in Cambodia has been impressive: in 2015, film-maker Polen Ly and visual artist Sareth Svay were among the artists who won prestigious international awards in their fields. But, as was strikingly evident at the Kampot festival, the country’s authors are still struggling to find their voices.
Literary culture in Cambodia is a long way behind not just the rest of Asia but the rest of the Mekong region Minh Bui Jones, editor, Mekong Review
Memoirs of the Khmer Rouge years have found audiences in the west, but these have mostly been written abroad, often with foreign co-authors and in languages other than Khmer. For writers living and working in Cambodia, publishing opportunities are scarce. Those with creative talent often opt for better paid jobs, in the media or in writing song lyrics for the commercial pop industry.
“[Writers] need to do a proper job and sometimes they don’t have time to focus on writing,” says Chheangly Yeng, a prizewinning author, who works in telecoms but spends his weekends carting his “magic library” of children’s books to remote villages. “In Cambodia, things are really difficult.”
The creation of a contemporary literary genre is particularly tricky in Cambodia because of the language’s written structure, argues Teri Yamada, who founded the Nou Hach Literary Association in 2002. “Cambodian writing has a lot of Pali and Sanskrit aesthetic influence,” she says. Traditionally there are no paragraphs, no sentence breaks and no quoted dialogue. “[Traditional writing] has lots of adjectives, it’s extremely descriptive, it tends to not have so much of a plot oftentimes,” says Yamada. And, critically for writers dreaming of international acclaim, “It is extremely challenging to translate that writing into English.”
The Nou Hach Literary Association offers literary prizes, publishes annual anthologies of new work in Khmer and is widely considered the most prestigious outlet for contemporary Cambodian fiction. Through workshops led by foreign writers, and the kinds of work it rewards, it has fostered a shift towards a more minimalist style of prose. “Language is always changing,” she says, comparing the transition to the creation of the modern Japanese style almost a century ago.
Yamada believes the current predominance of “development literature” in Cambodia — stories of heroic protagonists overcoming poverty — is in part a hangover from the 1990s, when the government and some non-governmental organisations offered lucrative prizes to authors who wrote on the theme of national progress. “It’s OK when you have an award, but if you have it linked to some kind of special topic then I’m not so sure,” she says.
The question now is whether writers can break free of these restrictions and find a way to produce work that is distinctively Khmer in both style and subject matter. George Chigas, senior lecturer in Cambodian studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, thinks they can.
“A lot of Cambodian cultural innovation has been the result of taking outside influences and fusing them, transposing them, into something new,” he says. Chigas pinpoints three moments of cultural meeting: with India in the 1st century, Siam in the 15th, and the French colonial protectorate. He believes the stage is now set for a fourth. “I’m really curious to see how this Western influence is going to undergo this process of syncretism and emerge as something uniquely Khmer,” he says.
Recently, events have started to echo his predictions. One writer, 37-year-old Phina So says that, in the absence of any contemporary literature programmes at school or university, she learnt her craft via workshops organised by Nou Hach and PEN Cambodia.
A lot of Cambodian cultural innovation has been the result of taking outside influences and fusing them, transposing them, into something new George Chigas
From this ad hoc training, So went on to chair PEN Cambodia’s women’s committee. In March 2015, she published Crush Collection , an anthology of stories by Cambodian women that both upheld and undermined traditional tropes: tales of romance, but all with unresolved, unhappy endings. “As long as we write in Khmer, the traditional element is there,” she says.
Meanwhile, magic library operative Yeng, took his disappointment at the underrepresentation of Khmer writers in Kampot as motivation to co-found Slap Paka Khmer: a writers’ circle set up to encourage new writing, multiply publishing platforms and ensure that at this year’s Writers and Readers Festival, the line-up looks different.
With Slap Paka Khmer’s help, he is also editing a bilingual anthology of poetry. “We won’t quit, because writing is our labour of love,” he says.
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Overview: The literature review is an essential component of high-quality academic and policy research papers. It summarizes and synthesizes the arguments and ideas of existing knowledge on a particular subject, helps to identify gaps in the existing literature on the subject, and situates the research presented within the field of study.
Overview. The literature review is an essential component of high-quality academic and policy research papers. It summarizes and synthesizes the arguments and ideas of existing knowledge on a particular subject, helps to identify gaps in the existing literature on the subject, and situates the research presented within the field of study.
Google's service, offered free of charge, instantly translates words, phrases, and web pages between English and over 100 other languages.
Photo: Sharon May, "Bayon, Cambodia" (2009) It has been forty years since the black-clad Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh during the Khmer New Year of April 1975 and evacuated the city, sending its inhabitants on foot to work and starve in labor camps in the countryside, initiating "Year Zero.". Literature, art, and religion were ...
Check 'review' translations into Khmer. Look through examples of review translation in sentences, listen to pronunciation and learn grammar.
Khmer English dictionary (or Cambodian) online translation, grammar. Kheng: Khmer-English dictionary (+ audio) • Kod: Khmer-English dictionary • Biology dictionary, English-Khmer, edited by the Royal University of Phnom Penh (2013) • Khmérologie : language & culture of Cambodia, by Pascal Médeville (blog) • Petit dictionnaire cambodgien-français : Khmer-French dictionary (2015)
Classical literature. The classical literature of Cambodia comprises works composed in verse and recorded between the 16th and mid-19th century; much of it reflects the cultural influence of India. It can be classified according to three major genres: the epic, verse novels, and cbap, or "codes of conduct.". The best-known epic is the ...
When Cambodians speak of literature, they speak of aksar-sel (Sanskrit aksha- rashilpa), "the art of letters" and aksar-sah (aksharashastra), "the science of letters.". Khmer writers who succeed are celebrated not only for the creative genius of their art but also for their technical mastery over the bewildering variety of forms and ...
English word: The largest and complete. English-Khmer dictionary. English-Khmer dictionary is a free English to Cambodian translation with speaking sounds, explainations, examples, pronunciations, Khmer to Khmer definitions and Khmer to English translations. By Chanbo Keo.
Introduction. The Bachelor of Arts in Khmer Literature teaches students to analyse, explain and compare all aspects of Khmer language and literature. Students gain an expert knowledge of Khmer language and literature, which forms the basis of Khmer culture and identity. As Cambodia becomes increasingly involved in exchanges with foreign ...
The meaning of community english literature review. By: Watts, Esther M; Contributor(s): Working group on Social Organization in Cambodia; Material type: Text Publication details: May 1999. Description: 25 pages 30 cm DDC classification: 306.08909596 WAT
The Reamker (Rama's legacy) is the Cambodian version of the Ramayana, the famous Indian epic. The Reamker comes in rhymed verses and is staged in sections that are adapted to Cambodian dance movements interpreted by local artists. The current surviving literary text of Reamker, the Khmer version of Indian epic Ramayana dates to 16th century ...
Examples of literature reviews. Step 1 - Search for relevant literature. Step 2 - Evaluate and select sources. Step 3 - Identify themes, debates, and gaps. Step 4 - Outline your literature review's structure. Step 5 - Write your literature review.
Background. A faculty of Khmer Language was established in 1985 at what was then called the Ecole Normale Superieur. It then became the Department of Khmer Literature in 1996 under the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, when the institution was renamed the Royal University of Phnom Penh. The degree course in Khmer Literature was ...
The Mekong Review launched in Phnom Penh, in 2015. ... The inaugural edition of the Writers and Readers Festival hosted discussions about Cambodian literature and culture. There were tales of ...
English-Khmer dictionary is an English to Cambodian translation. ...
In this course, students examine Sanskrit and antique Khmer literature through inscriptions from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries, including texts inscribed during the height of the Angkorian period. ... Students examine the formation and meaning of words, the relationships between lexicology and semantics and the roots of lexicology ...
income by writing video scripts and song lyrics. The negative Western perception of Cambodian writing dates to the nine- teenth and early twentieth centuries, the time of the French Protectorate. While extolling the architecture of the ancient Angkor civilization, French scholars dismissed Khmer writing as inferior.
A formal literature review is an evidence-based, in-depth analysis of a subject. There are many reasons for writing one and these will influence the length and style of your review, but in essence a literature review is a critical appraisal of the current collective knowledge on a subject. Rather than just being an exhaustive list of all that ...
A literature review is a review and synthesis of existing research on a topic or research question. A literature review is meant to analyze the scholarly literature, make connections across writings and identify strengths, weaknesses, trends, and missing conversations. A literature review should address different aspects of a topic as it ...
A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing ...
A literature review is an essential part of any academic research paper, thesis, or dissertation. It provides a thorough examination of existing research on a particular topic, allowing the researcher to identify gaps, areas of agreement or disagreement, and emerging trends in the field.
Obviously, the research conducted by the newly created École française d'Extrême Orient was beginning to bear fruit and the enlightened monarch understood the significance of these relics for Cambodian past history and identity. In fact, nationalism in Cambodia began with an evocation of Angkor's greatness made in the first Khmer political newspaper Nagarawatta, meaning "Angkor city."