First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Softcover

Ung, Loung

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0606251626 ISBN 13: 9780606251624

Publisher: Demco Media, 2002

Synopsis

Soon to be a major film, co-written and directed by Angelina Jolie Pitt

Until the age of five, Loung Ung lived in Phnom Penh, one of seven children of a high-ranking government official. She was a precocious child who loved the open city markets, fried crickets, chicken fights and being cheeky to her parents.

When Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into Phnom Penh in April 1975, Loung's family fled their home and were eventually forced to disperse to survive. Loung was trained as a child soldier while her brothers and sisters were sent to labour camps. The surviving siblings were only finally reunited after the Vietnamese penetrated Cambodia and started to destroy the Khmer Rouge.

Bolstered by the bravery of one brother, the vision of the others and the gentle kindness of her sister, Loung forged on to create for herself a courageous new life.

First They Killed My Father is an unforgettable book told through the voice of the young and fearless Loung. It is a shocking and tragic tale of a girl who was determined to survive despite the odds.

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

Edition details

• Publisher: Demco Media
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0606251626
• ISBN 13: 9780606251624
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English