Authors: Loung Ung
ISBN-13: 9780060856267, ISBN-10: 0060856262
Format: Paperback
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Date Published: April 2006
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Loung Ung is a national spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine Free World, a program of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. She is the author of Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind, and she lives with her husband in Ohio.
From a childhood survivor of Cambodia's brutal Pol Pot regime comes an unforgettable narrative of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her family, and their triumph of spirit.
Until the age of five, Lounge 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 sassing her parents. While her beautiful mother worried that Loung was a troublemaker--that she stomped around like a thirsty cow--her beloved father knew Lounge was a clever girl.
When Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into Phnom Penh in April 1975, Ung's family fled their home and moved from village to village to hide their identity, their education, their former life of privilege. Eventually, the family dispersed in order to survive.
Because Lounge was resilient and determined, she was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, while other siblings were sent to labor camps. As the Vietnamese penetrated Cambodia, destroying the Khmer Rouge, Loung and her surviving siblings were slowly reunited.
Bolstered by the shocking bravery of one brother, the vision of the others--and sustained be her sister's gentle kindness amid brutality--Loung forged on to create for herself a courageous new life.
A riveting memoir...an important, moving work that those who have suffered cannot afford to forget and those who have been spared cannot afford to ignore.
Author's Note | ix | |
Phnom Penh April 1975 | 1 | |
The Ung Family April 1975 | 7 | |
Takeover April 17, 1975 | 17 | |
Evacuation April 1975 | 23 | |
Seven-Day Walk April 1975 | 28 | |
Krang Truop April 1975 | 38 | |
Waiting Station July 1975 | 44 | |
Anlungthmor July 1975 | 50 | |
Ro Leap November 1975 | 56 | |
Labor Camps January 1976 | 69 | |
New Year's April 1976 | 79 | |
Keav August 1976 | 93 | |
Pa December 1976 | 101 | |
Ma's Little Monkey April 1977 | 113 | |
Leaving Home May 1977 | 120 | |
Child Soldiers August 1977 | 129 | |
Gold for Chicken November 1977 | 144 | |
The Last Gathering May 1978 | 151 | |
The Walls Crumble November 1978 | 158 | |
The Youn Invasion January 1979 | 165 | |
The First Foster Family January 1979 | 175 | |
Flying Bullets February 1979 | 184 | |
Khmer Rouge Attack February 1979 | 195 | |
The Execution March 1979 | 203 | |
Back to Bat Deng April 1979 | 209 | |
From Cambodia to Vietnam October 1979 | 218 | |
Lam Sing Refugee Camp February 1980 | 228 | |
Epilogue | 235 | |
Acknowledgments | 239 | |
Resources | 241 |