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Robert Carmichael

Goodreads Author

Born

in Cape Town, South Africa

Website

http://www.whencloudsfell.com

Twitter

Carmichael_Rob

Genre

Nonfiction, History, Memoir

Influences

Gitta Sereny; George Orwell; J.M. Coetzee; Rian Malan

Member Since

March 2014

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/robertcarmichael

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I am a South African journalist who lived in Cambodia for a decade reporting for radio, print and video for an array of international outlets. I now live in Hungary.

My (admittedly bleak) reading list reflects my abiding interest in two related facets - one, how people manage to withstand the most brutal and live-denying conditions; and two, why others believe it is right and proper to subject their fellow humans to such horrors.

My first book - When Clouds Fell from the Sky: A Disappearance, A Daughter's Search and Cambodia's First War Criminal - reflects that interest. Through five lives, it looks at five decades of Cambodia's recent history to explain what happened under Pol Pot's brutal Khmer Rouge regime (1975-79) and why.

I've often w ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Robert Carmichael The best advice I ever read about writing was in a Paris Review article - it was an interview with Ray Bradbury (it's a great interview, btw, and free…moreThe best advice I ever read about writing was in a Paris Review article - it was an interview with Ray Bradbury (it's a great interview, btw, and free to read online). In that interview, Bradbury wasn't replying to a question about writer's block, but his answer surely applies to it. Given that I can't possibly do better than him, I'll just post his answer here:

"Action is hope. At the end of each day, when you’ve done your work, you lie there and think, Well, I’ll be damned, I did this today. It doesn’t matter how good it is, or how bad—you did it. At the end of the week you’ll have a certain amount of accumulation. At the end of a year, you look back and say, I’ll be damned, it’s been a good year."

In other words, just write. Write your way through it. Other solutions include going for a walk or - for the Hemingway types - hitting the bottle.

I'm more of a fan of the Bradbury approach. Just keep writing. Even if it's terrible you can always rework it during the editing process.
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What’s the best thing about being a writer?

Robert Carmichael Not answering to anyone else.

The freedom that writing brings is wonderful. Scary, sometimes, given that we all have to eat and of course to meet our …moreNot answering to anyone else.

The freedom that writing brings is wonderful. Scary, sometimes, given that we all have to eat and of course to meet our other responsibilities. But being my own boss (whether as a freelance journalist or as an author) is a true privilege.

When I think of all the jobs I've done in the past (and that's an eclectic mix, I can assure you), I can honestly say that writing my first book was the most productive, satisfying and worthwhile work I've ever done. And that on its own is gold.(less)

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Robert Carmichael’s books

Average rating: 4.16 · 49 ratings · 9 reviews · 1 distinct work • Similar authors

When Clouds Fell from the Sky: A Disappearance, A Daughter's Search and Cambodia's First War Criminal

4.17 avg rating — 52 ratings — published 2015 — 4 editions

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* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

2 posts
Robert Carmichael's Blog

Kampot Literary Festival

Should you find yourself in or near Cambodia in early November, check out the first Kampot Writers' and Readers' Festival to be held from November 5-8 in Kampot Town, southern Cambodia (about 240 km south of Phnom Penh).

It's modelled on the well-loved Ubud festival in Bali, Indonesia and, should it pique your interest, you can read more about it here:

http://www.kampotwritersfestival.com/... Read more of this blog post »

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Published on October 29, 2015 18:56

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Robert is Currently Reading

Robert Carmichael is currently reading

Off the Voortrekker Road

by Barbara Bleiman

bookshelves: currently-reading

read in July, 2016

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Robert Carmichael said: " Interesting take on an interesting time in South Africa's history - the background (to the second timeframe of the book) is a court case and the rise of the National Party and consequently apartheid. (I see from the reviews on Amazon that I'm not the ...more "

Jul 20, 2016 02:07AM · see review

Robert Carmichael is currently reading

The Corrections

by Jonathan Franzen

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Feb 26, 2016 08:36PM

Robert’s Quotes

“And everyone wants to know: Who? Why? The victims ask the hardest of all the questions: How is it possible that the person I loved so much lit no spark of humanity in you?”
― Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa

tags: apartheid, history, humanity, south-africa

6 likes