[3] Sam, with his wife Soy, leaves his native Battambang province, in order to flee from armed conflict between the Issarak and the French colonial forces.

He reaches Phnom Penh but in capital city, he struggles with the impossible livelihood of daily wagers[clarification needed] driving his cyclo or rickshaw, taking turns with his wife.

Except for the conclusion and prologue, in which cyclo rider Sam is on his way to attend a National Congress as a delegate, the entire book is set in flashback three years after the independence of Cambodia.

[6] In the context of Southeast Asian committed literature of the 1960s which were concerned with solidarity in society and the fate of the poor,[7] the novel is a "singularly illuminating historical document of the new nation-offers a fresh view into a period of profound transformation in Cambodia.

"[8] His main character’s aspiration for a good life – guided by ethics, hard work and harmonious relations – echoes Sihanouk’s promise of modernisation, as well as the ambiguity of his tenuous ideological balance between monarchism, conservatism and “Buddhist socialism”.

Whereas Soth Polin had given into the pessimism of existentialism, in such books as Life is pointless, Suon Sorin represents the hopes that were shared by many young Cambodians of his generation in the Sungkum as their country strived for independence.

In 1961, A New Sun Rises over the Old Land won the first Indradevi Literary Competition under the auspices of then-Head of State, King Father Norodom Sihanouk.