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and heal faster because she was so young.” Oh how I wanted to scream out: “I remembered! I saw! I hurt!”—but I did not have the words to explain what I felt. When the words came to me, I found I did not then have the courage to say them out loud. I feared once I started the tears would not stop. In First They Killed My Father I tried to channel the physical feelings and emotions of the child who had to lose her voice—become dumb, deaf, mute, and blind to survive. I wanted readers to know the confused mind, lost soul, lonely life, and angry heart of the child I was when my charmed life and family were taken from me by the Khmer Rouge and I did not understand a single thing that was going on. It was very empowering to write the book and relive my childhood after having gained the vocabulary to express many of the things that had long been imploding inside me.

“Through the years I have lived many lives, and with each incarnation my war child is there beside me—giving me strength. … But when I visit her in the Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia, none of my new adult incarnations can travel back with me.”

“I knew I was protecting myself by writing in the past tense. … I knew I had to use the present tense.”

With the narrative style and point of view selected, I sat down and wrote the first three chapters of First They Killed My Father in the past tense. But it did not feel authentic. I knew I was protecting myself by writing in the past tense. I knew I would have an easier time writing this way, but that the book would not have the impact I wanted. I felt (and still strongly feel) that war is hard, heartbreaking, and painful. Writing in the past tense allowed me to distance myself from that pain, but it distanced the reader as well. I knew I had to use the present tense. When I made the switch from past to present tense, the emotional toll of writing was exponentially harder. For months I listened only to Cambodian music, ate mostly Cambodian food, read books about the Khmer Rouge genocide, and covered my apartment floor with pictures of my father, mother, sisters, family, Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge soldiers and their victims. As I relived the raw anger, searing pain, and ripped heart of the child I was when my family started to disappear one by one, I found that the pain did not defeat me but only made me hungrier for peace. By the time I had finished the last line of First They Killed My Father, I knew I would come out stronger for having written it.

Letters from Cambodian Readers

Note to reader: minor editing for clarity was performed on the following letters. Most of the writers’ language—misspellings and all—has been preserved. Writers’ names have been changed to protect their identities.

March 21, 2000

Ms. Ung,

While flipping through the TV channels on Sunday, I bumped into the interview on CSPAN in which you talked about your book. The TV program has awakened my memories that had been subsided over the years. With refreshed memories and a new perspective, I’d like to share a few words.

Finally we Cambodians have someone who is articulate enough to bring the tremendous sufferings of the Cambodian people during the four murderous years to the American Media and possibly the world as well. Among all the Indochinese refuges, the Cambodian has suffered the most and yet has not gotten our share of attention. In America, we heard of Viet Cong Death Camps but rarely heard of Tuol Sleng Slaughter house. At one time, I happened to overhear at Vietnamese woman said that staying in her country would have no future for her children—what a joke! To us, thinking about a future with good education for fancy houses is a luxury beyond reach. To all of us, coming to the U.S. or other countries was not a matter of choice. We went to whatever country that was willing to accept us. Some non-Cambodians refugees picked countries of their choices like they shopped for houses. I knew of some fellow Cambodians families went to Ivory Coast in Africa. I bet nobody knows or cares about how many nightmares have awaken up us and made us think we