A Dream in Tatters

Kerry and Kay Danes' small world is defined by heat and separation. At seven o'clock in the morning, guards rouse them from their stifling communal cells and lead them and their fellow inmates into the dusty exercise yard of a Lao prison. Forbidden to speak to each other, the Danes communicate in stolen glances and occasional whispered words. This is not the way their new life was supposed to work out. Moving from Australia to Vientiane with their three young children, aged seven to 15, was to be an exotic adventure in a city of decaying French colonial mansions, golden stupas...