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First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
Audiobook9 hours

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

Written by Loung Ung

Narrated by Tavia Gilbert

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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About this audiobook

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.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 30, 2011
ISBN9781452673271
Author

Loung Ung

Loung Ung was 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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Reviews for First They Killed My Father

Rating: 4.550387596899225 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    great book. It really opened my eyes to what it would have been like. Very emotive and i was in tears more than once.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I would have been much happier if this book had not passed itself off as entirely non-fiction, I think labeling it as novel based parlty on her experiences would have been much more truthful. Describing herself as "middle class" seems disingenous considering the fact she says her family owns three cars, and they are eating their fill at restuarants right before the fall of Phnom Penh. Based on the dates she gives it would have been impossible for her family to have visited Angkor Wat when she said she did. In general, parts of the book felt contrived, like she was doing a checklist of everything that happened during the Cambodian genocide. All it needed was a scene of a man being murdered just for wearing glasses and you would have had it all. I'm not saying she wasn't there and that some of it didnt' happen, but I am saying that there was a good amount of fiction mixed to her telling. With that said, after all the historical reading I've done on that time period, it was interesting to get a first hand account of the genocide and revolution there.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A must read. It never ceases to amaze how all of the memoirs detailing the horrors of communism are essentially the same. They’re nightmarish in every sense of the word.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Amazing story. Great narration. My only wish is that her other two books be made into audio also.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Well written and incredibly hard to read in terms of the events that happened.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The themes prevalent in dystopian novels are brought to reality in Luong Ung's account. The society she lived in before becomes torn apart by war and violence. Ung, still a child, is forced to deal with heavy decisions. I think this book is an example of how governments are systems that can easily break down and how its citizens can turn against each other. While this book is more personal than political in nature, it presents a powerful message of how propaganda can affect people. Ung shows an incredible amount of bravery for both her experience and telling this story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is honest and heartbreaking, even more so because it is written from the raw perspective of a child. The author doesn't try to rationalize or gloss over any of the feelings or thoughts she had as a child, and it makes this book all the more real.

    For me, this is a 'must read', because we all need to educate ourselves on the different dictatorships that have plagued so many countries around the globe in the past - and those who still do so today. We need to learn about the past to be better equipped to prevent such awful things from ever happening again.

    A note on the audiobook:
    The production is great, but I was a bit confused because there are two or three chapters in the book where the author describes events she wasn't present for. Sometimes they were described to her later, sometimes she imagines what might have happened. In the audiobook, those chapters are treated just like all the others, which confused me, because it was an element of fiction in a non-fiction autobiography. But I was told that in the book or e-book, those chapters are clearly marked, so that's just an audiobook problem.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Heart wrenching story of a girl whose family was taken from their home in Phnom Penh when she was only five years old. Forced to work in rice fields and gardens for precious little food, Loung watched her family slowly starve, be sent to other camps, and die at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. The voice of her young age rang true as she mourned more the loss of her comfortable life than realizing the danger they faced.Loung was the second youngest in her family and shared her vivid memories of her life from 1975 to 1979 until she was able to escape Cambodia to Thailand and eventually gain admission to the U.S.That her brothers and sisters managed to eventually find each other is a testament to their strong bonds and determination to survive.She shares pictures of her family in the middle of this book which added to the reality of their trials.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is one of my favorite books since it was so meaningful and touching. The author's craft is great in this book and it really brings out emotion.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Short of It:A young girl’s heart wrenching tale of her family’s struggle for survival during the Cambodian Genocide (1975-1979). Hard to stomach at times but beautifully written.The Rest of It:Ung’s tale begins in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Once known at “the pearl of Aisa”, Phnom Penh is the home of the Ung family which consists of her mother and father, and her siblings, Meng, Khouy, Keav, Kim, Chou, Loung (the author) and Geak. Life in Phnom Penh is quite pleasant for Loung. Her father (Pa) works for the government and is highly respected in the community. Due to his class standing, they live in a nice house and Loung’s mother (Ma), does not need to work. However, as the Khmer Rouge invade Cambodia, the Ung family is forced to leave their home. This is Loung’s story of what happened to them on their way to Thailand.As you can imagine, this is a very tough story to read. Loung is so young when her family is forced to move. She is only five-year’s old. Caring for her younger siblings and sometimes even the older ones, must have been very tough for her. As her family makes their way from one work camp to another, their fight to stay alive becomes more difficult as food rations dwindle, and violence abounds all around them.This is from page 149/50 of the paperback. Loung is referring to her younger sister’s emaciated body:My eyes stay on Geak. She does not talk anymore. She is so thin it is as if her body is eating itself up. Her skin is pale yellow, her teeth rotten or missing. Still she is beautiful because she is good and pure. Looking at her makes me want to die inside.Ung’s story is quite compelling. Her relationship with her father comes through as being strong and solid, so much so, that when the soldiers take him away, her world falls down around her. Since it is impossible to know exactly what happened to her father, she fills in the gaps with visions she has of the event. These visions seem plausible and serve as closure for her, and I found them to be quite effective. She uses this technique again towards the end of the story and although I saw it coming, it was just as effective and shook me to the core.What was particularly poignant for me, were her memories of life in Phnom Penh. The clothes they wore, the food they ate. She never realized how good she had it until all of it was taken away. Those moments seemed so small to her at the time, but in reflection, they end up being the cement that holds her together.My book club chose this book for May. We meet to discuss it next week. I didn’t know too much about the Cambodian Genocide before reading it. Although it is a tough read and hard to stomach at times (it took me a really long time to finish), I am glad I read it. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about this topic.Source: Purchased
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I heard the author interviewed on NPR and felt I had to read the book. This is the story of the Cambodian genocide through the eyes of a small girl.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A vivid first-person account of the atrocities inflicted upon thousands and thousands of Cambodians during the reign of Pol Pot's ruthless Khmer Rouge regime as seen through the eyes of a young girl whose family lived, and died, at its epicenter. The long-term horror endured by this resilient child and her family are hard to even imagine, but the author does an admirable job of relaying the tremendously difficult and heartwrenching events. The scariest thing about reading this book was the blank stares I got when people asked me what it was about and I said the Khmer Rouge killings in the 1970s. Given the thousands of people who died miserably of torture, beheadings, starvation and malnutrition-related disease over a 5-year span less than 50 years ago, I thought more people would remember it as they do The Holocaust and Rwanda. Sadly, that doesn't appear to be the case. An important story that deserves to be both read and remembered.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was blown away by the story contained in this book.To give you some idea of context - I was born in 1976. The year I was born Loung Ung was five years old and living in Phenom Penh, Cambodia. Her life was relatively good (although nothing like mine here in the States). Her prize possession was a red dress. She had six siblings, and a father and mother who loved her.Then the Civil War taking place in Cambodia stepped in and became personal for Loung and her family (and millions of other Cambodians). 1/4th of the population was killed - but that's something we're not taught about here. So thank goodness that there are books out there that record the story so those who died are not forgotten.While I was being fussed and cooed over, Loung was dealing with starvation, attempted rape, the murders of those close to her, and illnesses which were ravaging her body. She was being trained in combat, her mind filled with fear, and forced to leave her family and adapt to conditions which I pull back in revulsion to think of. And she tells her whole story - crystal clear - in First They Killed My Father. This is such a charged memoir. It's hard to recommend because the read is so tough, but I couldn't put it down. I think you'll find the only critique (or at least the only one I have) is that the story is told in a bit of a sing-song simplistic way, but it doesn't distract from the power of the story itself.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book started out a little slow, but was very good once I got a few chapters into it--after Loung's family were forced to leave their home. The way that these families were torn apart, starved, and mistreated was horrible. I cannot imagine being forced to steal food or watch my child starve, but it would be an easy choice to steal food before allowing my own child to die of starvation. The closeness between Loung and her siblings was touching, but this was otherwise a heartbreaking story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a really heartbreaking story while at the same time being very uplifting. The will to survive is unimaginable but really speaks to your heart. I have never read about the Khmer Rouge army and the Cambodian genocide. I was transfixed by Loung's story and her life before, during, and after. I look forward to reading Lucky Child where Loung reunites with her sister. The courage this family showed during this horror is amazing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I knew when I agreed to review this book that it would not be an easy read. I have to admit to an appalling ignorance of the events in and around the events in the book. Hell, I have to admit to an appalling ignorance to the events surrounding the Viet Nam war and I grew up during it and lost an uncle to it.That being said I went into this book very blind and came out with some knowledge. Knowledge I'm not sure I want or need. I am forever amazed at the capacity of man to kill, maim and destroy for what are proclaimed to be the loftiest of reasons but boil down to power and greed. But back to First They Killed My Father....This is the first book of a trilogy of memoirs written by Loung Ung about her experiences. This book details her youth in Cambodia first as a child of privilege, then as a slave soldier to the Khmer regime. It's not a happy tale and Ms. Ung does not make herself out to be a pleasant child. In fact she is nothing short of a brat. She writes through the eyes of the child she was and this can be trying at times - she is five when the troubles begin and constantly asking for explanations but do five year old children truly understand political situations to this degree? I don't know. I fortunately have never been a child of this level of horror.The book details her families travels from village to village trying to avoid discovery as her father was a government official in the former regime. They are forced to work in ways they never had and to endure starvation and beatings as well. Fear was constant and one day they come for her father. Ms. Ung uses imagination at times to fill in what she does not know for sure but so much is not known of the evils of Pol Pot's reign.The book is well written and quite compelling. This was my first time reading a book of this topic and it has me interested in learning more but also fearful of what I might learn. Dictators do not leave kind legacies and Pol Pot was one of the nastier ones. The book has stayed with me and has made me want to pick up the other two volumes to continue on with Loung Ung's story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I found this to be a startlingly powerful memoir of Ms Ung's childhood experiences. Sadly I went in knowlng precious little about the atrocities the people suffered under the Khmer Rouge, but this book has inspired me to remedy that.I enjoyed the present tense telling of the story, it made me feel like I was along for the ride. This book has stayed with me, and given me new perspectives on refugees.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    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 from the point of view of a very young child narrator. Ung was only five years old when the Khmer Rouge forcibly evacuated her city of Phnom Pehn, less than eight when she was trained to be a soldier. The book is also written in the very literary fiction present tense, with events she didn't experience but could only imagine told through the gauze of italics. I wished at times she had told the story straight--it doesn't need to be tarted up. Or that like Vaddey or Eggers, she had written this as a novel, and not claimed this as memoir. Interestingly, Ung addresses some of these issues in her afterward about writing the book. She says she takes offense at those who feel someone so young would not remember--wouldn't even feel the trauma. She wanted to give voice to a child going through such experiences. She also defended the use of present tense. She said she originally tried to write this in the past tense, but felt that "by writing in the past tense" she was protecting herself. That she needed that immediacy. But I actually think present tense--unless handled very, very skillfully--attracts attention to itself, and so can be more distancing than the past tense.That said, this did give a day to day sense of life under the Khmer Rouge I didn't get either from the film The Killing Fields nor Veddey's novel In the Shadow of the Banyan. Part of that is because being partly Chinese, Ung experienced racism and had to hide her background, even her skin color, to avoid "ethnic cleansing"--giving her a different perspective than I've heard in other stories of this period. She spoke of the favor given to "Base People"--those native Khmer from the countryside who had been there for generations, as opposed to the "new people" driven there from the cities. And she certainly gave a vivid, harrowing account of hunger--from the physical effects to what it drives you to. Despite my criticism, this is definitely a remarkable story of survival.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is devastating. But it's necessary.
    I didn't know much about Cambodian history but this reading sparked my interest and I started researching a bit.
    Loung Ung writes her testimony about the Cambodian Genocide when she was 5-8 yrs old. This perspective makes the story particularly hard. And, at the same time, Loung Ung explains everything that was going through at the time that she couldn't understand.
    But still, doing research is always a good thing.
    After reading this book, I'm left with one idea. How hunger was a constant thing. And if that's a hard pill to swallow, I can't imagine how it would be like to live it.
    I really liked the writing. We have a mixture of events narrated by Loung with events that could've happened to her family. All these imaginations, flashbacks, dreams, and nightmares are all very well combined. And it's something we all do in our minds.
    As I said, this is a necessary book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    1975 übernehmen die roten Khmer die Macht in Kambodscha. Bei ihrem Versuch einen egalitären Agrarkommunismus durchzusetzen vertreiben sie die Bevölkerung aus den Städten und machen aus Kambodscha ein einziges großes Arbeits- und Gefangenenlager. Bis zum Einmarsch der Vietnamesen 1979 bezahlt ein Drittel der Bevölkerung, bis zu 3 Mio Menschen, die Schreckensherrschaft der roten Khmer und ihres "Bruders Nr. 1", Pol Pot, mit dem Leben...Die Autobiographie schildert die Zeit von der Machtübernahme bis zur Befreiung und der darauffolgenden Flucht nach Amerika aus der Sicht eines 1975 fünfjährigen Mädchens. Es schildert die Entwicklung vom umhegten Mittelklassekind im bürgerlichen Phnom Penh zur hasserfüllten Kindersoldatin. Es offenbart die Greuel des Regimes und die Lebensumstände der unterdrückten, hungernden Bevölkerung auf authentische Weise.Inhaltlich macht das Buch nicht nur betroffen: Es macht demütig und mahnt zur Bescheidenheit und dem Bewahren demokratischer Grundwerte. Hinzu kommt, dass das Buch auch aus literarischer Sicht überzeugt und nie schulmeisterhaft wirkt. Ein großes Buch, dass auf allen Schienen zu überzeugen versteht.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loung Ung gives a stirring description of life under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. As a young survivor she saw things no child should ever see. A must read for any who were not alive in the '70s or was too young to remember. May we all pray nothing like this will ever happen again.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung Even with a title like that, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I'm not normally one for human strife stories, but I was compelled. The first time I saw the title, while searching for books for the Read Harder Challenge, I just had to read it. This is not your typical human strife story.
    There was something special and horrifying about reading of the Cambodian genocide through the eyes of a child, especially a child this young. The writing in the beginning took me a minute to get into. I have to wonder if it was simply the way that Ung recalls life from before the Khmer Rouge because it gets more detailed and emotional as her story progresses. There were a few other parts that felt distant like the beginning, like she was covering it just to not have gaps in the timeline of her story. The vivid memories are captivating and haunting.
    Ung explains the horrors of this genocide and the aftermath as she experienced them as a five year old, so the foresight and worry for the future that adults maintain, the planning and attempts to keep control are absent. She lives one day at a time, trying to understand the world as it is then presented, hoping for the best, mentally preparing for the worst that she can, but inevitably going through worse than she could think of. The uncertainty and ignorance of her initial displacement made the beginning that much more heartbreaking.
    My son happens to be five years old right now too and I thought about how I could explain to him something like that happening, how I could deal with knowing everything that was going on and dealing with his naivete, with whining as we walked for days because he didn't get it. I don't think I could do it, but they probably didn't think so before they had to do it either.
    I was impressed with her mother. For as much as Ung doesn't appreciate her mother's strength in the beginning, I found her incredible. I was grateful that she maintained the tone through these parts and didn't look back with a changed mind. She let the reader experience her frustration with her mother as it took place, as she did with everything else. Her father was even more impressive. In fact, her entire family had more strength and perseverance than I had anticipated. I suppose it is a testament to the human ability to endure and to hope in the face of great horrors.
    This book tore my heart out. It is a hard lesson in just how much suffering there is in the world and just how ignorant we can be of it, how adept we are at ignoring it. That it was real, not only for this family but for many others, made it so much worse. I'm not sure if it was fortunate for my reading experience that I knew relatively little about the Cambodian genocide before reading this book. I had only ever heard of Pol Pot and the landmine problem. I had heard the name Pol Pot in my childhood and his name was associated with Hitler and other horrible people, but I never really had specifics. The landmine problem I learned from Angelina Jolie's: Notes from My Travels where she recounts her visit to Cambodia. So I went into this book ignorant of the scope of the strife involved.
    I fully intend on reading the other two books of the series, Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind and Lulu in the Sky: A Daughter of Cambodia Finds Love, Healing, and Double Happiness. It also inspired me to finally read The Diary of a Young Girl, which I had been actively avoiding. I learned too much about that one and never wanted to dive into the tragedy of it. I realize from reading this that it's not about that, not really.
    Of course, there's more to Loung Ung's life than her past and her books. She is still an activist, please visit her activism page here. Though there is no specific release date, Angelina Jolie-Pitt has been working on Netflix movie of the book as well. You can find details here. She is also a contributor to the campaign, Girl Rising. Ung writes the story of Sokha, which is then narrated by Alicia Keys for the documentary by the same name, For details on the documentary, which was released in 2013, visit here. For details on Ung's involvement, visit here.

    There is more to women and our experiences than those popularized in the US. Sometimes it can be hard to see the activism that is still necessary in other parts of the world, or the female experience outside of our comfortable homes. Despite the opinions of naysayers, feminism is a huge part of the human rights struggle in many parts of the world, though not necessarily by name but deed. While this is a book I'd recommend to anyone looking for non-fiction, it is particularly important for feminists to read about the lives of women, for us to understand and support each other.
    Have you read First They Killed My Father? What did you think?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Great Read. Fascinated by the goings on in Cambodia at this time. This lady moved from village to village to hide her identity. would definitely read again
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent book about “communism” in Cambodia in the 1970s. More like war lords.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good read....emotional and hard to read at times, but it provides depth to generalized statements about Pol Pot and his idiocy.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book really gave me insight into what happened in Cambodia. It is well written although it was sad at times. It had a quick and understandable plot. The book gave me some background knowledge on the genocide, and I loved reading it!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A moving memoir from a Cambodian child labor camp survivor. All too often we forget or ignore atrocities that occur in poorer parts of the world. Gruesome details at times but that is all part of the story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A shattering read of one of the worst genocide's in history. You will be left aghast and in awe of the author's deep love for her family and country.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book was a real eye-opener for me. I had no idea before reading this what Cambodia went through and it was not too long ago!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I approach this book with anticipation and apprehension. I know virtually nothing about the Pol Pot regime, so I'm anxious to learn more about that aspect of history. I'm only on page 32 and I can already tell that this book is going to wreak havoc on me, emotionally. It may be hard to get through, but I will. These stories need to be told.And, as a ridiculous side note, you know the "Ads by Google" that run on the side bar on GoodReads? When I typed in the title to this book, one of the ads that popped up is "Genocide Ringtones". How utterly stupid is that!?

    1 person found this helpful