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A Harrowing Story of Survival, Family, and Courage Under the Khmer Rouge
by Loung Ung
From a childhood survivor of the Cambodian genocide under the regime of Pol Pot, this is a riveting narrative of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her family, and their triumph of spirit.
One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.
Harrowing yet hopeful, Loung's powerful survival story is an unforgettable memoir of a family shaken and shattered, yet miraculously sustained by courage and love in the face of unspeakable brutality.
How does a family's love endure when a nation is consumed by hate?
- A Child's Perspective on War: Experience the fall of Phnom Penh and the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime through the eyes of five-year-old Loung Ung.
- The Fight for Family: Witness the harrowing dispersal of a once-privileged family, with siblings sent to brutal labor camps and parents facing an unspeakable fate.
- Survival Against All Odds: From a life of privilege to a work camp for orphans, this is a raw and unforgettable account of a young girl's resilience in the face of starvation and brutality.
- Triumph of the Human Spirit: Discover the unbreakable bonds of love that sustained a family through one of the darkest chapters of modern history.
"A harrowing true story of the nightmare world that was Cambodia in those terrible times of mass murder and slow death through overwork, starvation, and disease." —Kirkus Reviews
"Ung's memoir should serve as a reminder that some history is best not left just to historians, but to those left standing when the terror ends." —Booklist
"Loung Ung plunges her readers into a Kafkaesque world... and forces them to experience the mass murder, starvation and disease that claimed half her beloved family. In the end, the horror of the Cambodian genocide is matched only by the author's indomitable spirit." —Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking
"Despite the tragedy all around her, this scrappy kid struggles for life and beats the odds. I thought young Ung's story would make me sad. But this spunky child warrior carried me with her in her courageous quest for life. Reading these pages has strengthened me in my own struggle to disarm the powers of violence in this world." —Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, author of Dead Man Walking
This information about First They Killed My Father was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Loung Ungwas the National Spokesperson for the "Campaign for a Landmine Free World," a program of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for co-founding the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Ung lectures extensively, appears regularly in the media, and has made more than thirty trips back to Cambodia. She is also the author of Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind and LuLu in the Sky.
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