The Modern Novel

Biography

Rim Kin was born Kim Kin in the Bak Touk area of Phnom Penh in 1911. His father was a public works inspector. Though he was his mother’s only child, his father had several other children from his first and third marriages. His father died when he was seven and he was then brought up by an uncle, a monk at a temple. When he was to be sent to school, a spelling error changed his name to Rim Kin. He attended the Collège Sisowath, a renowned Western-style secondary school. Under the influence of imported Vietnamese works, Rim Kin started writing at this time, producing a play for his class graduation. He started working as teacher. He contributed to a French newspaper, which had a Cambodian literary supplement. He wrote his first novel, សមាភាវី (Sophat), when he was twenty-seven. He could not afford the cost of printing – the only way to have it published in Cambodia at that time – so he had it published in Saigon. It sold out within six months. He continued to write novels and plays. He would later produce films and translate French works into Khmer. However, only his first two novels were translated into French (the latter posthumously) and none into English. He died in 1959.

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Rim Kin