One Community, One Book: 2002 Selection
First they Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
by Loung Ung
Written in a child's voice, the book tells in stark detail the horrors that Ung and her family suffered under the regime of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, which, through starvation, disease, forced labor, torture and execution, systematically killed an estimated 2 million Cambodians between 1975-1979. Almost one-fourth of the entire Cambodian population — men, women, and children — died.
With "First They Killed My Father," Ung bears poignant witness to this senseless slaughter. Her harrowing story of the degradation of the human spirit and the loss of innocence, of the atrocities she saw and her struggle to survive against all odds, is one of incomprehensible tragedy and inspirational triumph.
Dith Pran, whose wartime life was portrayed in the award-winning movie "The Killing Fields," said of the book: "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." Pran visited the UI during its Global Focus: Human Rights '98, an initiative organized in 1998-99 by Burns Weston, a UI emeritus professor of law and director of the UICHR, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
Born into a middle-class family at the height of Cambodia's bloody civil war, Loung Ung was just five years old when Pol Pot's genocidal Khmer Rouge overran the country and forced the entire population of the capital into the countryside. By 1978, her parents and two of her siblings were dead at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, and the young girl was trained to become a child soldier. Two years later, she escaped and eventually settled as a refugee in Vermont through a sponsorship of the Holy Family Church. Now a resident of Cleveland, Ohio, Ung is presently National Spokesperson for the Campaign for Landmine Free World, a program of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation.
Resources
A list of discussion questions is available.
Sponsors
Program sponsors: The UI Center for Human Rights, the UI International Writing Program, Prairie Lights Books, Coralville Public Library, Hancher Auditorium, Iowa Book LLC, Iowa City Human Rights Commission, Iowa City Public Library, Iowa City Press-Citizen, UI Charter Committee on Human Rights, UI International Programs and University Book Store. Iowa City High School and West High School Library are also participating.