Read this book!!!

As you may recall, a few months ago I went to Cambodia, and spent a day exploring the Cambodia's dark side, the genocide under the Khmer Rouge.
In addition to checking out the S-21 museum and the Killing Fields, I also started reading First They Killed my Father. It's about the Khmer Rouge takeover, and life under the Khmer Rouge. It is told by Luong Ung (the author), who was 5 years old when the attack came. I liked the book so much that I read Luong's second book, Lucky Child. This one is about Luong's new life in America where she and her brother and her brother's wife are able to seek refuge after the war. It is also about the life of her sister, who stays behind in Cambodia because the family does not have enough money to send everyone to the US.


I would highly recommend these books to you. Both books are incredibly powerful. I warn you that the first one especially, is not a fun book to read. I found it incredibly sad, and was often frustrated/angry by the cruel hypocrisy of the Khmer Rouge. (They say everyone is equal, but the people originally from the city are given less food and less clothing. The people are slowly starved while they work all day farming only to see the food shipped off to China to pay for weapons. If they are caught stealing food to survive they are badly beaten or even killed). Still, I think it's an incredibly powerful story, and very worth reading to help keep us conscious of some of the terrible things going on in this world, and to remind us to try and prevent this from happening again.

If you make it through the first book, I'd highly recommend that you continue with Lucky Child as well. While it is also sad, it's not nearly as tough as the first book, and I also found it incredibly inspiring to read about how the members of Luong's family (in Cambodia, France, and the US) pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and fought so hard to make life better for themselves and the other members of their families. It certainly helped me remember how damn lucky I am. . .

Anyways, hope you have a chance to read these books. Real eye openers. As an added incentive, if you read this book and want to meet up at a bar to chat about it, the first round's on me!