First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [123]
My gratitude goes to my agent extraordinaire, George Greenfield, for believing in this book. Many thanks to my friend, reader, and incredible writing teacher, Rachel Snyder. I also owe a huge debt to the fabulously talented Trena Keating, my editor at HarperCollins, whose support and enthusiasm for this book never wavered. Without Trena’s great editing, you’d all be reading a much longer book. Thanks also go to Bronson Elliott for her words of encouragement.
I would like to give special thanks to Mark Priemer, my best friend, who always encouraged me no matter what I did or where I went, and without whose love and support I would not be who I am today. To my girlfriends and new sisters in America: Ly Carboneau, Heidi Randall, Beth Poole, Kia Dorman, Britta Stromeyer, Joan Mones, Nicole Devarenne, and Jeannie Boone, thanks for reading many drafts.
To my second family in Vermont, Linda, George, and Kim Costello, thank you for bringing my family to America. To Ellis Severance, my ninth-grade English teacher at Essex Junction High School, thank you for my first A-plus on my essay. Every time I think to myself that I cannot write about this, I remember you. To all the great teachers at the Albert D. Lawton Junior High School and Essex Junction High School, and Saint Michael’s College, thank you for preparing me for life in America. Also a special thank-you to the community in Essex Junction, Vermont, where kindness is abundant. There was no better place for me to heal.
Finally, to my American-born nieces, Maria and Victoria, I hope this book will allow you to get know the grandparents and aunts you never met.
resources
To learn more about the Campaign for a Landmine Free World contact:
Campaign for a Landmine Free World
2001 S Street, NW
Suite 740
Washington, DC 20009
Tel. 202–483–9222
Fax.202–483–9312
Web. http://www.vvaf.org
To learn more about Cambodia contact:
The Cambodian Genocide Program
Yale Center for International and Area Studies
Yale University
P. O. Box 208206
New Haven, CT 06520–8206
Web.http://www.yale.edu/cgp/
P.S
Insights, Interviews & More
About the author
Meet Loung Ung
About the book
Writing First They Killed My Father: The Voice
Letters from Cambodian Readers
Read on
An Excerpt from Loung Ung’s Lucky Child
About the author
Meet Loung Ung
“In 1980 [Loung] and her older brother escaped by boat to Thailand, where they spent five months in a refugee camp.”
LOUNG UNG is a survivor of the killing fields of Cambodia—one of the bloodiest episodes of the twentieth century. Some two million Cambodians (out of a population of just seven million) died at the hands of the infamous Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime.
Born in 1970 to a middle-class family in Phnom Penh, Loung was only five years old when her family was forced out of the city in a mass evacuation to the countryside. By 1978 the Khmer Rouge had killed Loung’s parents and two of her siblings and she was forced to train as a child soldier. In 1980 she and her older brother escaped by boat to Thailand, where they spent five months in a refugee camp. They then relocated to Vermont through sponsorship by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Holy Family Church parish in Burlington.
“The first English book I remember loving,” she says, “was Froggy Went a-Courtin’. I can still hear the music in my head. I love the humor and silliness of it all.”
Her employment history reaches back to a local shoe store, where she sold shoes and “developed an intense dislike for smelly feet and socks.” After college, she waited tables for two weeks. (“I was fired when the management team found out I was dyslexic with numbers.”)
In 1995 Loung returned to Cambodia for a memorial service for the victims