New York Times
[Ung] tells her stories straightforwardly, vividly, and without any strenuous effort to explicate their importance, allowing the stories themselves to create their own impact.
San Francisco Chronicle
A riveting memoir...an important, moving work that those who have suffered cannot afford to forget and those who have been spared cannot afford to ignore.
Bernstein
During the three years that the Khmer Rouge tried to create an agrarian utopia in Cambodia, two million people are believed to have died from execution, starvation and disease. Two million -- a horrifying number, but so large as to seem almost an abstraction, like the distance to the nearest star. The number gains far greater psychological force with [this] new memoirs, whose author, a young girl in the Cambodia of the time, describes the terror and losses she suffered during the Khmer Rouge revolution in wrenchingly particular terms... [Ung] tells her stories
straightforwardly, vividly, and without any strenuous effort to explicate their importance, allowing the stories themselves to create their own impact.
—The New York Times
From the Publisher
Despite the tragedy all around her, this scrappy kid struggles for life and beats the odds. I thought young Ung’s story would make me sad. But this spunky child warrior carried me with her in her courageous quest for life. Reading these pages has strengthened me in my own struggle to disarm the powers of violence in this world.” — Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, author of Dead Man Walking
“[Ung] tells her stories straightforwardly, vividly, and without any strenuous effort to explicate their importance, allowing the stories themselves to create their own impact.” — New York Times
“A riveting memoir. . . an important, moving work that those who have suffered cannot afford to forget and those who have been spared cannot afford to ignore.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“Loung Ung plunges her readers into a Kafkaesque world. . . and forces them to experience the mass murder, starvation and disease that claimed half her beloved family. In the end, the horror of the Cambodian genocide is matched only by the author’s indomitable spirit.” — Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking
“Loung has written an eloquent and powerful narrative as a young witness to the Khmer Rouge atrocities. This is an important story that will have a dramatic impact on today’s readers and inform generations to come.” — Dith Pran, whose wartime life was portrayed in the award-winning movie The Killing Fields
"A harrowing true story of the nightmare world that was Cambodia in those terrible times of mass murder and slow death through overwork, starvation, and disease." — Kirkus Reviews
"Ung's memoir should serve as a reminder that some history is best not left just to historians, but to those left standing when the terror ends." — Booklist
"In this gripping narrative Loung Ung describes the unfathomable evil that engulfed Cambodia during her childhood, the courage that enabled her family to survive, and the determination that has made her an eloquent voice for peace and justice in Cambodia. It is a tour de force that strengthens our resolve to prevent and punish crimes against humanity." — U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy
"This is a story of the triumph of a child's indomitable spirit over the tyranny of the Khmer Rouge; over a culture where children are trained to become killing machines. Loung's subsequent campaign against landmines is a result of witnessing first hand how her famished neighbors, after dodging soldier's bullets, risked their lives to traverse unmapped mine fields in search of food. Despite the heartache, I could not put the book down until I reached the end. Meeting Loung in person merely reaffirmed my admiration for her." — Queen Noor
"Loung has written an eloquent and powerful narrative as a young witness to the Khmer Rouge atrocities. This is an important story that will have a dramatic impact on today's readers and inform generations to come." — Dith Pran, whose wartime life was portrayed in the award-winning movie The Killing Fields
Booklist Starred Review
Ung's memoir should serve as a reminder that some history is best not left just to historians but to those left standing when the terror ends.
AudioFile
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…[and] she certainly captures the emotional experience.”
Booklist (starred review)
Ung’s memoir should serve as a reminder that some history is best not left just to historians but to those left standing when the terror ends.”
Booklist
"Ung's memoir should serve as a reminder that some history is best not left just to historians, but to those left standing when the terror ends."
U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy
"In this gripping narrative Loung Ung describes the unfathomable evil that engulfed Cambodia during her childhood, the courage that enabled her family to survive, and the determination that has made her an eloquent voice for peace and justice in Cambodia. It is a tour de force that strengthens our resolve to prevent and punish crimes against humanity."
Iris Chang
Loung Ung plunges her readers into a Kafkaesque world...and forces them to experience the mass murder, starvation and disease that claimed half her beloved family. In the end, the horror of the Cambodian genocide is matched only by the author’s indomitable spirit.
San Francisco Chronicle
A riveting memoir...an important, moving work that those who have suffered cannot afford to forget and those who have been spared cannot afford to ignore.
Sister Helen Prejean
Despite the tragedy all around her, this scrappy kid struggles for life and beats the odds. I thought young Ung’s story would make me sad. But this spunky child warrior carried me with her in her courageous quest for life. Reading these pages has strengthened me in my own struggle to disarm the powers of violence in this world.
Dith Pran
Loung has written an eloquent and powerful narrative as a young witness to the Khmer Rouge atrocities. This is an important story that will have a dramatic impact on today’s readers and inform generations to come.
Booklist
"Ung's memoir should serve as a reminder that some history is best not left just to historians, but to those left standing when the terror ends."
OCTOBER 2011 - AudioFile
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. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
