“During Pol Pot’s four-year reign of terror, up to 80 per cent of Cambodia’s artists perished in a purge of the intelligentsia more far-reaching than anything wrought by Mao or Stalin. With them went much of the performance repertory of classical theatre and dance, as well as an enormous variety of folkloric arts. But the Khmer Rouge failed to extinguish Khmer culture.” And it has struggled back…