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).

3 stars

This book is written by Looung Ung - as a child - the child that ran from the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during the Vietnam Conflict. Ung spent 4 years running with her family. A young child from a family of 7 children she had lived a wealthy life in Phnom Penh until the Khmer Rouge entered their city. During her flee to freedom her family was displaced and separated. She finally ended up in a refugee camp, on a small schooner with many other people and traveled to America to join one of her brothers.

On one hand having read the book Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison I understood more of what Ung was going through. On the other hand I believe that having read that book it also took something away from this book, causing me to rate it lower than I would have.

There is a movie directed by Angelina Jolie with the same name as this book.

This book ripped my heart out, as expected. Told from a child's perspective, this is the terrifying and heartwrenching story of the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia in the late seventies. Loung Ung was only five years old when she was forced to leave her home and most of her belongings and flee the city with her family.

The author takes through you the years of starvation, murder, abuse, and torture as she remembers experiencing them from the ages of five to eight years old. She is unflinchingly honest, which means you also see the not-so-great aspects of a young girl who was relatively spoiled and sheltered before the occupation--selfishness, whining, cruelty to her sister and others, and general brattiness. On one hand, you can't blame her, but on the other, she definitely made the experience tougher for some of her family, and her harsh assessments of her poor sister ("She's so weak. I can't imagine how she survived the war.") were hard to read at times.

But sometimes that wilfulness and self-confidence was what saved her. I wanted to cheer when she savagely fought off her would-be rapist, screaming "Die! Die! Die!"

I really don't understand these regimes. On one hand, their vision was to create an agrarian utopia where everyone would be equal and prosperous. Great...so to do that, you starve, torture and kill everyone? How does that work, exactly? Pol Pot and his henchmen even turned on their own by the end and murdered the people who had always supported and/or fought for them. If they hadn't attacked the Vietnamese enough to spark a retaliation, they might have wiped out the entire country.

It's believed that around two million people lost their lives during this genocide (estimates vary between 1.5-5 million). As horrible as the author's story is, the poor souls who ended up in the "reeducation camps" or the prisons had it much worse. To get a true picture of how horrifically evil this regime was, I highly recommend reading books with a broader perspective as well as Luong's powerful memoir.

One thing that was really surprising, given how big her publisher is, was the lack of editing. There were so many typos and other errors in the book, including simple things like "peak" instead of "peek." This is no fault of the author's, but the editing team did a sloppy job with this one.

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, moreless that he killed over 2 million people...in the 1970's none the less! Her story will make you appreciate even the simplest things in life.

Harrowing. I will not rate this, it doesn't feel right.

I thrifted this book a couple of weeks ago. When Kissinger died, I thought it was perfect timing to pick this up. Cambodia was one of his biggest sins. Even though it wasn't really mentioned in the book, one can't isolate the American bombing campaigns of the Cambodian-Northern Vietnamese border from the rise of the Khmer Rouge.

It tore at me that this was written from a child's perspective. Mere ink on paper could never adequately explain the violence that Loung witnessed and experienced. The killing started, and it didn't stop. I had to put it down a couple of times. And I have the absolute privilege to do so. Reading this reminded me of how minuscule my problems are.

This was beautifully written. But, it did not have to be. I do understand the pressure of just writing beautifully in hopes of being heard. Nevertheless, this was brilliant. Extremely vivid, it makes the unimaginable very imaginable.

I was so taken back by the fact that Loung's narration started in 1975, which was also when Saigon fell. Little did I understand what was going on in next door Cambodia.

Not ashamed to say I cried a couple of times. Raw and emotional. An essential read.

4.5 Sterne.

Dieses Buch habe ich für eine Weltreise-Challenge gelesen.

Ich kannte mich zuvor überhaupt nicht mit der Geschichte Kambodschas aus und war dementsprechend schockiert, über den Genozid der 1970er Jahre dieses Landes zu erfahren.
Die Erzählung ist sehr einnehmend aus Kindersicht der Autorin geschrieben, und war für mich emotional manchmal nur schwer zu ertragen. Von Völkermord, Zwangsarbeit, bis hin zu sexuellem Missbrauch und Tod ist wirklich alles dabei, was nicht nur die Autorin und ihre Familie, sondern das die Bevölkerung von Kambodscha damals ertragen musste.
Anders als in einigen Rezensionen kritisch erwähnt, hat mich der Schreibstil überhaupt nicht gestört, sondern sogar eher dazu geführt, dass ich manchmal den Eindruck hatte, das Geschehen hautnah mitzuerleben - mit all seinen schrecklichen Facetten.

Ich hätte mir allerdings gewünscht, dass man ein paar wenige historische Hintergründe zu den Motiven der roten Khmer erfährt. Für mich war nicht ganz klar, welches Ziel sie verfolgen und warum sie Millionen ihrer eigenen Landsleute entweder ermorden, oder unter schrecklichen Umständen infolge Krankheiten oder Hunger sterben lassen. Es gibt dafür natürlich absolut keine Rechtfertigung, und dennoch hätte es mir geholfen, ihre Taten aus ihrer Sicht besser einzuordnen.

Alles in allem aber eine sehr empfehlenswerte Erzählung, die ich vermutlich nicht mehr so schnell vergessen werde.

Comecei a ler esse livro por fazer parte da lista de livros recomendados pela escola da minha filha. E uma historia dolorosa em que a autora conta a sua vida no Cambodia durante a ditadura de Pol Pot.
A autora narra a sua vida e sobrevivencia durante a guerra ea vida como refugiada. E uma leitura muito triste, mas e um tema que infelizmente nao deixa de ser atual, pois no mundo mais de 120 milhões de pessoas foram forçadas a abandonar as suas casas devido a conflitos e violência.

“A long time ago Pa told me that April is a very lucky month. In the Cambodian culture, New Year always falls in April, which means that all the children born before New Year become a year older. In the Cambodian calendar year, Kim is now eleven, Chou is nine, I am six, and Geak is four. In Cambodia, people don't celebrate the day on which they were born until they've lived past their fiftieth year. Then families and friends gather to feast on sumptuous food and honour the person's longevity. Pa told me that in other countries, people become a year older only after having passed the exact day and month that they came into the world. On this day every year, friends and families gather to celebrate with food and presents”
- First they killed my father - A daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung
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Have you ever read stories that seems connected with others despite it was written in 2 different books. I have read one short story written by Thai Author about the Cambodian Girl that fled her country due to Khmer Rouge Regime and befriended Thai Boy when she find refuge in Thailand. This book, on the other hand, did have a chapter which the author managed to escape to Thailand before eventually left to USA. It’s not much but my brain insisted on making that connection. Before i rambling nonsensically, let’s just get on with this review. The story of growing up under the brutality of The Angkar and Senseless Pol Pot Regime was told in the POV of a 5 years Old Girl. She barely seems to understand what has transpired around her little world. What she knew is she can never go back to what it was before. She will never be pampered by her father again as he was taken by Khmer Rouge Soldiers and never returned after that. Her Mother was killed right after that and the author was shifted from one camp to another - as her strength and skills were not enough to contribute to the glorious of her country’s future envisioned by Pol Pot. She was also bullied for her skin color as she was a minority - Being a Cambodian Chinese, she has fair skin compared to Pure Khmer that has a brown skin. Her features did put herself on target of being ridiculed by her fellow ‘comrades’. She lost her sister to dysentery as there’s no medicine to be given and no one can prescribed treatment. The Angkar has killed majority of the intellectuals including doctors. Aside from the intellectuals, the capitalists also were not being spared. Despite managed to conceal his identity as a businessman once the regime takeover, the author’s father were being persecuted right away once he got exposed. Some died, some survived, some were traumatised, some wish this never happened at all - such were the sentiments carried by Cambodians when they recalled the dark past of their country. Reading this book while slowly witnessing how anger, pain, despair transformed an innocent child to someone wanted to murder Pol Pot so badly that she prayed to God to let her do it is brutal. That colorful persona of a child instantly vanished. From being indulged lovingly by her family, she was almost being raped by the Youns Soldiers. These Vietnamese soldiers was supposed to protect them but ended up abusing their power. She also went from a city girl to a servant girl that went to live with some villagers family just for a protection and some food. Overall, this book did offer new perspective of what occurred during pol pot regime - How children were being indoctrinated as they were sent off to different camps, the supposed community approach of sharing were not truthful - exploitation between classes still happened despite saying all of them are equals and the fear of boogeyman by the Angkar (first they killed the parents, then they scared that there will be revolt by the kids, so they ended up killing the kids too)

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 cruel to each other. unfortunately it is, that is why you can not compare people with animals. animals will never be so pointlessly cruel.

I have wanted to read Loung Ung's memoir, First They Killed My Father, for years, and was able to schedule it as the Cambodia stop on my Around the World in 80 Books challenge. This work, which details Ung's experiences with the Cambodian genocide, is subtitled 'A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers', and is an incredibly poignant record of a young life spoiled, first by civil war, and then by a dictatorship.

Spending her formative years, and losing half of her family, during Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge seems as vivid for Ung now as it was at the time. The second youngest of seven children born to a high-ranking government official, Ung led a prosperous life in Phnom Penh. When the Khmer Rouge Army marched into the city in April 1975, Ung and her family had to flee, moving from one village to another in order to keep hidden; she was just five years old. Later, the family had to split up almost entirely in order to enable them a stronger chance of survival. Through various means - 'execution, starvation, disease, and forced labour' - the Khmer Rouge is thought to have killed almost a quarter of Cambodia's population, estimated at a horrifying 2 million citizens.

First published in 2000, Ung begins her recollections at the point of being driven out of her home in 1975. The memoir spans just five years, but is incredibly tumultuous. Ung has chosen to present her memoir using the present tense, which gives it a real sense of urgency. From the very beginning, Ung's childish innocence of the time shines through: 'Pa always defends me - to everybody. He often says that people just don't understand how cleverness works in a child and that all these troublesome things I do are actually signs of strength and intelligence. Whether or not Pa is right, I believe him. I believe everything he tells me.' The prose continues in this rather simplistic manner throughout; as she tells her story, Ung seems to inhabit the voice of her childhood.

The cultural information which Ung imparts alongside her own memoirs is fascinating. There is a finely honed sense of place and atmosphere throughout. When they are forced to flee, Ung makes clear that every family, no matter their position or standing, wwere driven out of cities all over Cambodia over the course of several days: 'People pour out of their homes and into the streets, moving very slowly... Everywhere, people scream their good-byes to those who choose to stay behind; tears pour from their eyes... the world moves in hurried confusion from the city.' The landscape changes rapidly as the family leave Phnom Penh in their truck: '... the wide, paved boulevard gives way to windy, dusty roads that are no more than wagon trails. Tall elephant grass and prickly, brown brush have replaced Phnom Penh's blooming flowers and tall trees.'

Despite her age, Ung is able to understand the roots of what drives her family away from all they know: 'Keav [her older sister] tells me the soldiers claim to love Cambodia and its people very much. I wonder then why they are this mean if they like us so much. I cheered for them earlier today, but now I am afraid of them.' Her family live in constant fear, and this trickles down to Ung. She writes: 'At five years old, I am beginning to know what loneliness feels like, silent and alone and suspecting that everyone wants to hurt me.' The young Ung has so much strength and determination, which is incredible given the conditions she is forced to live under.

First They Killed My Father is harrowing, and incredibly moving. Ung describes, along with her own experiences, those things which affected all of her fellow Cambodians. So much changed; religion was banned, and children were made to work instead of pursuing their education. People were made to live under horrendous conditions: 'The population in the village is growing smaller by the day. Many people have died, mostly from starvation, some from eating poisonous food, others killed by soldiers. Our family is slowly starving to death and yet, each day, the government reduces our food ration. Hunger, always there is hunger. We have eaten everything that is edible, from rotten leaves on the ground to the roots we dig up.'

As time passes, Ung becomes almost entirely desensitised to the death and suffering around her. She does, however, still retain some knowledge of the wonder of the world, which she was familiar with during her time in Phnom Penh: 'The next evening, while sitting with [her brother] Kim outside on the steps of our hut, I think how the world is still somehow beautiful even when I feel no joy at being alive within it. It is still dark and the shimmering sunset of red, gold, and purple over the horizon makes the sky look magical. Maybe there are gods living up there after all. When are they going to come down and bring peace to our land?' First They Killed My Father is a startling and important record of a ruined childhood, which I would urge everyone to read.

Confession- I could not stomach reading more than halfway.

I wanted to like this book for multiple reasons- no-one wants to dislike the work of a traumatised Khmer Rouge survivor and human rights activist.

However, this book is poorly written for a few reasons, some of which are more tolerable than others. The major reason why I couldn't finish it was the narrative voice.

Perhaps being written from the perspective of a five year-old girl is supposed to give the author license for a juvenile narrative voice. However, to me the narrative voice was intolerable. The death of her father (the spoiler's in the title) and other family is described in such trite ramblings and gimmicks such as melodramatic narrated dreams. To me it was not sincere. This is the biggest problem because I felt that such melodrama does a terrible injustice to the Cambodian people and the times. I'm waiting for a better book on the Khmer Rouge and would love to hear suggestions.