A heartbreaking and devastating story by Loung Ung. We really do not realise how lucky we are in comparison to some of the horrors others have lived through. This story will remain with me for a long time. Highly recommend.

Na een bezoek aan de Killing Fields in Cambodja, wilde ik graag meer lezen over deze vreselijke periode in Cambodja. Online werd dit boek onder andere aangeraden. En wat een heftig boek zeg. Het boek is geschreven vanuit het perspectief van een 5 jarig meisje (Loung) en wat heeft zij verschrikkelijke dingen meegemaakt.

Ik zou dit boek zeker aanraden aan mensen die meer over Cambodja willen leren. Ik vond het mooi om te lezen hoe zij Phnom Penh beschreef voor het Khmer regime aan de macht kwam (ook omdat ik net daar was geweest). Daarna beschreef zij mooi soms vanuit haar eigen perspectief als kind en soms vanuit een alwetend perspectief, hoe de oorlog verliep. Hoe bruut de moorden waren die om haar heen werden gepleegd. Maar ook hoe mensen werden mishandeld, uitgehongerd en geïndoctrineerd.
Wat een verschrikkelijk stuk geschiedenis. En wat vreemd dat dit stukje geschiedenis in Nederland niet wordt behandeld op school. En wat verschrikkelijk dat mensen zulke dingen bij anderen kunnen doen, onbegrijpelijk…

This book is a memoir of the experience of living under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, recalled through the eyes of a child who was 5 when the regime took power and 9 when the regime fell.

For me, the strongest part of First They Killed My Father was its beginning, as we get a sense of Loung's happy middle-class family life in Cambodia and then see that reality slowly whittled away by corrupted power into something horrifying. Her family, lice-ridden and starving, are forced into hard labor. Some fall victim to systematic killings. I could not stop thinking of how easy it is for one's existence to be completely transformed by a change in power. How fragile anyone's relative comfort might be.

The bubble burst for me in this book when Loung as narrator first goes "out of body" to imagine what another member of her family, stuck at a different labor camp from the rest of the Ungs, is experiencing near-death. That family member does not survive. Later, it is revealed that events happened in a totally different way from what she imagined. It is then that Loung states that she made up that fantasy to comfort herself about the death.

That bit of narrative trickery, however well-intentioned, took me right back to my college writing courses where we often discussed how to properly reflect truth in memoir. A nonfiction writer should never allow for holes to be poked in the reality of their narrative. I began to fixate on the fact that Loung was 5-9 years old for the entirety of these events, and that the siblings who experienced most of the events with her and could corroborate her story were barely older than she was. I began to wonder how she retained such detail from childhood. I began to question chunks of dialogue, anything more specific than general sensory memory or major occurrences. It doesn't help that these out of body imaginings are weirdly supplemented by anecdotes about how Loung had "psychic" experiences in Phnom Penh before the war, as if to justify the imagined passages.

Know I am not doubting that the events of this book happened, by any means. But I appreciated the fantasy tactic much more when she first prefaced those scenes by saying "this is how I imagined it" - in the case of the death of her father, for instance, which she (thankfully) doesn't witness. It is a rather moving image and illuminates his qualities that Loung so admired.

(A slighter nitpick with this book: there are a lot of typos and grammatical errors. The last thing you want in an emotionally charged moment is to not understand a sentence because there are redundant words left over from a change in sentence structure. Being a compulsive self-editor who writes first like she's racing to a finish line then has to clean up the mess left behind, I usually feel sympathy for this kind of thing. But it's a Harper Perennial publication and I guess I have big expectations for them.)

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 reason, I have never been held so captive by a book in all my life. I've read many other survivor accounts from other historical periods, but this one disturbed me to no end; such a young child, such horrible atrocities being committed, witnessed, remembered. I could never imagine walking in her shoes at her age. Her story will haunt me forever.
I found that as the hours passed after I began the book, I could not go to sleep without finishing the story, without making sure this child would make it out alright. Of course we know she does survive, how else would the book be written, but I read on as if her life depended on reading the very last word. I finished it just as the sun started to rise and spent those first beautiful rays in complete thanksgiving: how lucky are we, who have lived so well, to be able to learn from those who have not had that chance.

Was recommended this a couple of years ago when I visited the killing fields in Cambodia. I cried through the majority of this book. Absolutely devastating story.

This book broke my heart into pieces...

I read this book for the Diversity in All Forms! book club. If you would like to participate in the discussion here is the link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

"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."

تحكي أونج قصة نجاتها من جريمة إبادة جماعية، وهي بعد طفلة في الخامسة من العمر عندما بدأت مأساتها.

الجوع حقيقي في هذه الرواية، ومؤلم جدا؛ له مخالب تبطش، وأسلحة تفتك بالأجساد، وتعبث بالأرواح.

الجرائم التي تحدث حين تطلق يد الجنود أو الميليشيات من غير قيود مرعبة، وهذه الفواجع تتكرر على مر التاريخ. ليتني أستطيع القول أن الإنسانية تقدمت الان بحيث أصبحنا بمنأى عنها.
أفلحت أونج في توصيل معاناة النازحين في الإبادات الجماعية وكوارث الحروب من خلال سردها للنزوح المتكرر لها وعائلتها.

الراوية تتكلم عن تجربتها من وجهة نظرها كطفلة، ورغم أن حكم الخمير الحمر لم يمتد طويلا، إلا أن الأربع سنوات التي حكمت فيها جماعة الخمير الحمر كمبوديا كانت ذات نتائج كارثية على أونج وعائلتها بالإضافة إلى مليونين من الضحايا الذين لقوا حتفهم.
لا تتحدث الراوية عن الدوافع السياسية، وتدعنا نتخبط معها في فهم الدوافع لتفلح تماما في أن ترينا المأساة من عيون طفلة مشتتة، وخائفة، وساذجة، وفي أحيان كثيرة مقاومة وبشدة.
قوة الروابط العائلية، والحب، والكره، والاستغلال، والقتل، واليأس والأمل، والفراق واللقاء، والبحر والبر، والحضارة والهمجية، والجمال والقبح، لكل هذا وأكثر كان له نصيب في هذا الكتاب الصادم والهام.

I did not know much of what happened in Cambodia in the 1970s before I read this book. This book is a first hand account of a girl living during the reign of terror of the Khmer Rouge. This book isn't pretty but it is still one that is important to read.

Read this review on my blog: https://thriftybibliophile.com/2018/0...

In the harrowing book First They Killed My Father, Loung Ung recounts her time under the war regime of Pol Pot. Despite the civil war, genocide, and starvation, Loung Ung refuses to be cowed into submission. Because of her passionate spirit and a desperate drive to keep living, Loung survives.

This book was beautifully written, though the details are horrifying and very reminiscent of a Holocaust survivor's memoir. The atrocious acts Loung Ung endures are heartbreaking. It's so hard to come to terms with the fact that people do such horrible things to other people.

The pace of the book is swift. The book opens in Phnom Penh, where Loung lived a life of leisure and privilege as the daughter of a high-ranking government officer. Where some families lived in little more than shacks, Loung's family had an apartment with a maid. As the war takes a turn for the worse, Loung's life is turned upside down. The events unfold quickly, and they're easy to follow as the family moves from one place to the next.

I enjoyed this book as much as one can say they enjoy this sort of book. It was riveting but also desperately sad. I felt completely immersed in Loung's world and it was painful as she was separated from her family and friends. The book doesn't hold back as it covers all of the nitty gritty details of starvation and prisoner abuse.

The narrator in this audiobook was wonderful. She was engaging and emotional in all the right places. Her voice was able to capture the innocence of a child perfectly. I enjoyed listening to her weave Loung Ung's tale.

If you're looking for a memoir to read, this one is well worth the read. If you're sensitive to stories of abuse and acts of war, then be wary before picking up this book.

When reading First They Killed My Father, by Loung Ung, the audience is exposed to a compelling book filled with adventure and tragedy. It is about a girl who lives a fairly comfortable life in Phnom Penh with her parents and siblings. When the Khmer Rouge takes over Cambodia, her family is forced to flee into separate labor camps. As the story progresses, it is startling to comprehend that the book is actually a memoir. This is her story.
tThis book not only gives insight into Loung’s personal life, but also provides background information about the Khmer Rouge so it is easy to understand. It is interesting to read the book, because it is told from her memories of when she was five. This book covers a span of five years; from when she was five to ten. There are some Cambodian words incorporated into the story, which gives the dialogue more style. The plot is always full of suspense, because the audience does not know what’s going to happen next and who is going to die.
tSome weaknesses in the novel are that it is about memories of when she was five. It is hard to believe that Loung remembered everything when she was five in vivid detail. Then again, such a journey can never be forgotten. The book does not elaborate when it refers to “taking people away.” The people in the village were disappearing one by one, and some were taken by soldiers. Being taken away by soldiers basically means that the person is going to get killed. The author does not elaborate on these small details, but it helps the readers get thinking.
tThe novel was the best memoir that I have ever read. It was mixed with emotions and feelings. I would recommend this book to everybody. The book will give the audience completely different outlook on life. Once you read it, you won’t regret it.

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 Population die from starvation or outright execution during the revolution.

This is a book that should be read alongside books on Rwanda, the Nazi Holocaust, and Stalin's treatment of Ukraine (and really all of his people).

4,5. Vaya viaje más intenso. Siempre que empiezo un libro que nos habla sobre la historia real de, en este caso, la propia autora, me da algo de miedo. Principalmente porque, aunque normalmente satisfactorio, suele ser un viaje muy duro. Y es el caso de esta historia.

Nos encontramos en Camboya con una familia de clase media compuesta por una madre, un padre y siete hijos. Éstos acomodados en las privilegios de pertenecer a una clase social más alta, verán como su mundo se derrumba con la toma de posesión de los Jemeres rojos y su líder Pol Pot. Guerra, torturas, muertes, violaciones... Una guerra horrible, que resuena más aún al saber que fue cierta.

Me ha resultado muy interesante descubrir que la revolución cultural China no fue algo que ocurriera solo en allí. Aunque con otro nombre también ocurrió algo similar en Vietnam, y lo mismo ocurrió en Camboya con los Jemeres rojos. Y a saber en cuantos sitios más. Lo curiosos de esta guerra es que lo líderes usaron la ingorancia y cultura de la gente de pueblo para iniciar una guerra contra la cultura y el conocimiento, y las personas que los poseían. En este mundo en guerra tener posesiones o tener una profesión diferente de la que implica la vida en el campo, era considerado demoniaco y en contra del líder Pol Pot y de Camboya. Y, por tanto, implicaba la muerte.

En definitiva, un libro muy duro, muy intenso. No para todos los estómagos. Pero que sin embargo tiene un halo esperanzador a causa de Loung Ung, que nos narra la historia en primera persona. Tuvo que convertirse en una mujer fuerte y poderosa con tan solo 5 años. Increíble viaje.