First They Killed My Father
A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
فرمت کتاب
audiobook
تاریخ انتشار
2011
Lexile Score
920
Reading Level
4-5
نویسنده
Tavia Gilbertناشر
Tantor Media, Inc.شابک
9781452673271
کتاب های مرتبط
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
- دیدگاه کاربران
نقد و بررسی
January 31, 2000
In 1975, Ung, now the national spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World, was the five-year-old child of a large, affluent family living in Phnom Penh, the cosmopolitan Cambodian capital. As extraordinarily well-educated Chinese-Cambodians, with the father a government agent, her family was in great danger when the Khmer Rouge took over the country and throughout Pol Pot's barbaric regime. Her parents' strength and her father's knowledge of Khmer Rouge ideology enabled the family to survive together for a while, posing as illiterate peasants, moving first between villages, and then from one work camp to another. The father was honest with the children, explaining dangers and how to avoid them, and this, along with clear sight, intelligence and the pragmatism of a young child, helped Ung to survive the war. Her restrained, unsentimental account of the four years she spent surviving the regime before escaping with a brother to Thailand and eventually the United States is astonishing--not just because of the tragedies, but also because of the immense love for her family that Ung holds onto, no matter how she is brutalized. She describes the physical devastation she is surrounded by but always returns to her memories and hopes for those she loves. Her joyful memories of life in Phnom Penh are close even as she is being trained as a child soldier, and as, one after another, both parents and two of her six siblings are murdered in the camps. Skillfully constructed, this account also stands as an eyewitness history of the period, because as a child Ung was so aware of her surroundings, and because as an adult writer she adds details to clarify the family's moves and separations. Twenty-five years after the rise of the Khmer Rouge, this powerful account is a triumph. 8 pages b&w photos.
Loung Ung was 5 years old in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The next four years were a desperate struggle to survive starvation, labor camps, and the loss of both parents. Ung relates her experience in the present tense, and Tavia Gilbert takes us on that journey with a superb performance that includes a myriad of emotions--from audible crying to fear and anger. This is a human story that takes place within the genocidal context of two million deaths, and it illustrates both the sheer brutality of mankind and the individual will to survive. Gilbert may be an unusual choice for narrating the memoir of a Cambodian. She cannot deliver a Khmer voice, but she certainly captures the emotional experience. A.B. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
دیدگاه کاربران