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First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

  • Jan 26, 2021
  • Loung Ung
  • 591 responses.

First They Killed My Father A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers From a childhood survivor of the Camdodian 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

  • Title: First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
  • Author: Loung Ung
  • ISBN: 9780060856267
  • Page: 274
  • Format: Paperback

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

    • ✓ First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers Î Loung Ung
      274 Loung Ung
    First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

    About "Loung Ung"

    1. Loung Ung

      An author, lecturer, and activist, Loung Ung has advocated for equality, human rights, and justice in her native land and worldwide for than fifteen years Ung lives in Cleveland, Ohio, with her husband.

    591 Comments

    1. There are some things left unlearned from history books You can read about the Cambodian genocide from many other sources that will explain the facts and statistics in the traditional sterile style that historic texts usually take You can actually witness the places and things that history has left behind And then, you can dive into personal accounts of history how humanity struggles to survive during some of its darkest hours While I am usually a sucker for auto biographical works for the above [...]

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    2. On a recent trip to Cambodia I got to witness it s rich culture, lush landscapes and delicious, delicious food At every turn I also saw the remnants of a painful past I spent a hot afternoon walking through the Tuel Sleng Genocide Museum, having my breath taken away as I walked from room to room, each worse than the last In one section of the former prison, I walked into a hastily made brick cell and felt so instantly claustrophobic I had to run out into the open air.The pictures, informational [...]

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    3. A riveting but harrowing account of a young Cambodian girl who s innocent idyllic childhood is swiftly obliterated by the invasion of the Khmer Rouge.Loung at 5 years old and one of seven children shares her traumatic story of the 4 years spent under the terrifying Khmer Rouge reign trying to survive after her family are forced to flee their home in Cambodia s capital Phnom Penh in 1975, it details all the devastating hardships from being forced to live in a labour camp, starvation, disease and [...]

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    4. I visited SE Asia this year visiting S 21 prison the Killing Fields moved me than anything else I saw this book moved me than anything else I read this year No child should suffer what Loung does and she doesn t flinch from telling things that show her in a less than favourable light but if she hadn t been an extremely tough five year old, she would never have survived view spoiler in one of the few funny lines in the book, Loung says she doesn t know how her far softer sister did hide spoiler [...]

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    5. I feel the need to explain why I ended up giving this one three stars I expected to come out of this with no less than a four star review Ung s suffering under the Khmer Rouge is long and both physically and mentally painful I learned a lot about the Cambodian Genocide at least from the point of view of a child I always wanted to keep reading and was invested in her and her family s story That being said, the pacing had me all over the place and the writing was okay I felt a little lost and conf [...]

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    6. FOR ALL THOSE WHOM GOT TORTURED, INSULTED, PERSECUTED, RAPED AND SLAUGHTERED BY COMMUNISM THROUGHOUT THE NIGHTMARISH YEARS IN LIVING HELL ON EARTHYou know nothing about Cambodia if you don t read this book title tt4882376

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    7. On Monday I finished reading First They Killed My Father which is the autobiographical story of a young girl s experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia I ve read a lot of books like this and I usually find them uplifting but this book just made me sad In Rwanda, you see people s incredible resilience and determination to overcome the prejudices of the past When I read the story of the boy solider, A Long Way Gone, I was heartened by the knowledge that he had escaped that life and be [...]

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    8. This was a heart breaking memoir It was very difficult to read but imagine how much harder it was to live it.

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    9. I just finished reading this book another one I had a hard time putting down I read it in 3 days I learned so much from this memoir which takes place, starting in April 1975 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia At this point the Cambodian Civil War has not quite taken hold The narrator of the story is a 5 year old girl, the 2nd to youngest in a family of 7 children She comes from a rather well off, very loving middle class family who live in the capital of Cambodia Phenom Penh The 5 year old takes us through [...]

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    10. Very often, when people are asked to recall genocides in 20th century, Jews Holocaust, Stalin s purge, Rwanda or the Cultural Revolution are the very first things come to mind People rarely remember the Cambodia genocide or they have never heard of as it was always overshadowed by the Vietnam war with no or little media coverage However, it doesn t mean this is any less painful I admire Loung Ung for her dedication on telling the world what happened under the rule of Khmer Rogue I m glad that I [...]

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    11. This is a true survival story The memoirs of Loung as she lived through the Khmer Roug take over of her country from 1975 1979 as a five year old girl with her parents and siblings are unbelievable She ended up becoming an orphan as the soldiers murder her parents and two sisters during this horrible time in Cambodia It is sometimes tough to read but her strength is truly amazing as she survives the worst time in her countrys history alone in a camp for child soldiers as Pol Pot reigns terror on [...]

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    12. This is a very difficult book to read It is not eloquently written, but how do you write about the Khmer Rouge and what they did to the Cambodian people April 1975 1980 eloquently One traumatic event after the other, from the first to the last page Reading it I simply wanted to get to the end I am not about to questions any of that written here I do think this book should be read How do you rate a book like this

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    13. A heartbreaking memoir detailing the horrors of the Cambodian genocide and Khmer Rouge takeover Loung s story spans over 4 years, from her sheltered life in Phnom Penh before the invasion, to her leaving Thailand for America I urge anyone and everyone to read this or listen to the audiobook, I kind of wish I had because I m sure I was mispronouncing a lot of words in my head.

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    14. I read this book in prepartion to our trip to Cambodia in April I would have read it anyway, however, because I love depressing autobiographies This one was far different than any other I have ever read being that it was from a child s perspective It retold her unbelievable story of escaping the killing fields during Pol Pot s reign with the Khmer Rouge I think everyone in my generation needs to read this book Many people my age do not even know Pol Pot s name, less that he killed over 2 million [...]

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    15. This is the story of a young girl s memories of life during the fall of Phnom Penh, and the subsequent takeover of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge with the sadistic Pol Pot as its head Loung Ung, at 5 years old was forced to travel with her family to the country to work as laborers, mostly in fields to produce food that was then sold to China for guns, while the workers slowly starved to death In this memoirs she presents her daily life as they try to survive the awful conditions 25% of Cambodia s P [...]

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    16. This book is very important to me because it represents the roots of my wife s family Having visited Cambodia, having seen the pile of bones from the genocide, having heard her family s stories I can t help feeling a vivid pain for all the suffering the Khmer people have to go through because of Pol Pot A magnitude not second to the holocaust and yet very much unknown to the most I give this book 4 stars only because at times some passages are hard to read, but i recognize the very powerful and [...]

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    17. This book is so heartbreaking at so many levels, i cannot name them words are useless I thought at one time at Susanne Collins Hunger games of course, there is no comparision, i dont even know why my mind came to that that is pure stupid science fiction, written from somebody who never had to experience war and famine, Ung s book is pure stupid reality If i hadn t had known this is a real story, a real person who lived through that, i would have easily said, it cannot be true people cannot be so [...]

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    19. 2 6 08Great book This is the first book I ve read by Loung Ung and so far I m not a big fan of her writing style it seems predictable and borrowed But the book is excellent, mostly because it is a five year old s perspective on living and dying during Pol Pot s cleansing project in Cambodia It s an interesting perspective because it is based on a mix of innocence, confusion, blind trust, fear, an innate need for self preservation and the amazing ability that children have to sense and understand [...]

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    20. This was a horrific story of the terror and violence that the Khmer Rouge inflicted on the innocent people of Cambodia Loung is the daughter of a high ranking government official, and the very type of family that the Khmer Rouge despise The family tree to flee, pretending to be poor farmers, but are eventually imprisoned in a camp The camp hardships and fear take their toll on the family and things get worse when they are all gradually separated into different camps, not knowing if they will eve [...]

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    21. 4 stars This is an event in history that I never knew about In 1975 The Khmer Rouge overthrew the government and over the next 4 years killed an estimated 2,000,000 Cambodians by murder, torture, and starvation Loung was age 5 when this began with her family consisting of Ma, Pa and 6 brothers and sisters ranging in age of 3 to 18 Loung tells this heart breaking story through the eyes of a 5 year old who is trying to understand what is happening and why This is a story of her amazing survival wh [...]

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    22. This was a touching book It was about struggle, hunger, trying times and a girl s strength to overcome It s about a family s love, a woman s experience as a child in Cambodia I was often in tears throughout the book imagining what it must have been like to go through such horrible things.I listened to the audiobook and enjoyed the narrator I definitely recommend this book to anyone whom wants to learn about this part of history, or really to anyone

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    23. What follows is an update that I wrote yesterday after completing half of the book Apparently my common sense was not working and no alarm bells were ringing that all was not what it seems That this was not all nonfiction but alas a lot of fiction and even lies But one day later I know better 17 feb 2016 51% I m 51% done with First They Killed My and I must say it is very well written which i did not expect The author managed to pull me in and that is what is my desire To be pulled in 23 hours, [...]

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    24. I feel bad I didn t love this book maybe I ve been jaded by too many tales of misery and atrocity Or maybe it s just reading this so soon after Egger s What is the What about Sudan or for that matter after Vaddey s The Shadow of the Banyan, also about this period, this book has a lot to live up to I admit I m someone who finds it hard to just go with the flow of the practice of memoirs written with the immediacy of a novel I just don t find it credible especially in this case where it s written [...]

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    25. I, literally, abandoned this book half way through I may not be an expert on good prose but I definitely recognize when I am NOT privy to such This novel rests on the fact that it is an account of real events A people s version of one of the greatest atrocities of the twentieth century I don t intend to demean the subject matter here, but a lot of this book regurgitates, unquestioningly, a textbook understanding of the Khmer Rouge The author blantly inserts generic socio political backstory via [...]

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    26. The author s choice of using the present tense narration through her childhood eyes worked wonders for making you feel like you re a witness in the midst of the family s experiences.Despite the Animal Farm esque brutality, it s still heartening how you could see Loung transform from a spoilt and pampered city girl into a strong, albeit still selfish, fighter with a fierce drive for survival The restrained expressions of emotions didn t hide the love shared between the family members and some of [...]

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    27. This book left me feeling than a little haunted and reflective I read this book while on the slow boat from Thailand into Laos, in preparation for my trip down to Cambodia in a couple of weeks time Reading a first hand account of the atrocities that occurred under the Khmer Rouge in our lifetime was sobering I had considered myself aware of the nature of Khmer Rouge regime, and knew on a superficial level what happened, but this book was a genuine eye opener on the impact on real families Altho [...]

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    28. I really had to remind myself throughout that it was real, and this happened because the horrors were so unbelievable it seemed fictional.Yet Ung writes with such truth, not only of events, but of how she felt what hunger made her do, her desire to kill or hurt at the age of 8, because of what had been done to her This book was confronting, powerful, informative, emotional, devastating, and what occurs is near unthinkable.I can t even capture what this book does Please read it I think how the wo [...]

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    29. A memoir by Loung Ung who was a small child in Cambodia in Pol Pot s Khmer Rough She tells her story from being a five year old living a wonderful life to overnight being sent to work camps, starvation, loss of family members This took place when I was in middle school, and I was totally oblivious to things happening in other parts of the world What an eye opener to read of the struggle to live day by day, hour by hour I pulled up her website and read about her life and the spokeperson she is n [...]

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    30. First They Killed my Father is a book that few authors could face writing The content is horrifying, yet a firm reminder to keep history from repeating itself, told by a woman who watched her world collapse around her.

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