ABSTRACT
Uncle San, a Cambodian villager in his mid-sixties, is living suspended in time. He is caught in a state of traumatic dysfunction, unable to escape from a violent past that afflicts him with nightmares. He is like many other rural Cambodians of his generation and, through metonymy, could even be seen as a symbol of Cambodia itself. Who is Uncle San? He is a figment of the transitional justice imaginary.
