Research on the Beginnings of Cambodian Sinophone Literature

Abstract

Based on research done in the National Archives of Cambodia on the Sino-Cambodian newspaper Mekong Yat Pao and its literary supplements, this report has two main objectives: firstly, since the field of Sinophone literature in the Cambodian Kingdom has seldom been researched, to write a general introduction to the history of the newspaper and its historical context; and then to describe in detail the contents of the literary supplements, trying to understand their development according to a periodization through which one can follow the evolution of the dominant literary genres and the parallel political events of the 1950–60s in Cambodia and mainland China.