First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (P.S.)

Ung, Loung

ISBN 10: 0756984823 ISBN 13: 9780756984823

Publisher: Turtleback, 1999

Synopsis

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 story is an unforgettable account of a family shaken and shattered, yet miraculously sustained by courage and love in the face of unspeakable brutality.

About this title

Review:

"So sharp with pain that when I read it, the words plunged into me like a knife" (Jon Swain Sunday Times)

"There can be absolutely no doubt about the innate power of [Ung's] story, the passion with which she tells it or its enduring importance" (Washington Post Book World)

"Ung's memoir should serve as a reminder that some history is best not left just to historians but to those left behind when the terror ends" (Booklist)

"I was deeply affected by Loung’s book. It deepened my understanding of how children experience war and are affected by the emotional memory of it" (Angelina Jolie Pitt)

From the Publisher:

An unforgettable narrative of war crimes and desperate actions from a childhood survivor of Cambodia's brutal Pol Pot regime

About this edition

• Publisher: Turtleback
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0756984823
• ISBN 13: 9780756984823
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 238