Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors
by Dith Pran
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This extraordinary book contains eyewitness accounts of life in Cambodia during Pol Pot's genocidal Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979, accounts written by survivors who were children at the time. The book has been put together by Dith Pran, whose own experiences in Cambodia were so graphically portrayed in the film The Killing Fields.The testimonies related here bear poignant witness to the slaughter the Khmer Rouge inflicted on the Cambodian people. The contributors-most of them now in show more the United States and pictured in photographs that accompany their stories-report on life in Democratic Kampuchea as seen through children's eyes. They speak of their bewilderment and pain as Khmer Rouge cadres tore their families apart, subjected them to harsh brainwashing, drove them from their homes to work in forced-labor camps, and executed captives in front of them. Their stories tell of suffering and the loss of innocence, the struggle to survive against all odds, and the ultimate triumph of the human spirit. show lessTags
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There has never been a more deadly genocide of its own people than in Cambodia. When Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime descended into Cambodia in April of 1975 they brought with them a rein of terror like never seen before. Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields contains eyewitness accounts of the genocide and lends a voice to the children who barely survived. Each chapter is a mini memoir, compiled by Dith Pran, a survivor himself. Some accounts are so graphically disturbing they left me sleepless for days. Imagine being forced to witness the killing of your family and not be able to show a single emotion? Imagine having to kill your own community? These children were worked to death, starved to death, disease-ridden and deprived. And yet, show more they survived and by all accounts, thrived once they escaped. A moving memoir. show less
A tear is all you need to provide when reading the stories of so many lost lives.
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Author Information
1+ Work 152 Members
Photojournalist Dith Pran was born in Siem Reap, Cambodia on September 23, 1942. He learned French in school and taught himself English. He had numerous jobs including working as a translator for the United States Military Assistance Command, with a British film crew, as a hotel receptionist and as an interpreter for foreign journalists. His show more journalistic partner was Sydney H. Schanberg, a Times correspondent assigned to Southeast Asia. During their time in Cambodia, Pran translated, took notes and pictures, and helped Schanberg maneuver the country. After the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975, Schanberg was forced to the leave the country and Dith became a prisoner of the Cambodian Communists. He survived beatings, backbreaking labor and a diet of a tablespoon of rice a day for more than four years before escaping over the Thai border on October 3, 1979. Schanberg wrote about Pran in newspaper articles and in a 1980 cover article titled The Death and Life of Dith Pran that appeared in The New York Times Magazine. In 1985, a book by the same title was published and the story became the basis for the movie The Killing Fields. He moved to New York and became a photographer for The Times. He also spoke about the Cambodian genocide to student groups and other organizations. In 1997, he published a book of essays by Cambodians who had witnessed the genocide as children. He died of pancreatic cancer on March 30, 2008. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 959.604 — History & geography History of Asia Southeast Asia: Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam Cambodia 1949-
- LCC
- DS554.8 .C46 — History of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania Asia History of Asia Southeast Asia French Indochina Cambodia
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 152
- Popularity
- 214,722
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.40)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 1
