Book
Alive in the Killing Fields
Alive in the Killing Fields: Surviving the Khmer Rouge Genocide is Nawuth Keat's memoir, written with Martha E. Kendall and published in 2009.[1][2] It tells how he survived the Khmer Rouge as a child and escaped through Thailand to the United States.[1][2]
About the book
Nawuth was the fifth of eight children in the village of Salatrave, where his father was a prosperous rice farmer.[1][3] He was nine years old when the Khmer Rouge reached the village.[3] In the attack on Salatrave, his mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and uncle were killed, and he was shot three times.[1] He was sent to Battambang to live with his older sister Chantha, and later fled the city with his brothers, Chantha and her fiancé Van Lan.[1]
The Khmer Rouge captured the family and forced them into labor, with little food, beatings and long hours in the rice fields and labor camps.[1][4] His brother Bunna was taken to a youth work team building dams and huts.[1] Nawuth escaped the camp and spent many months in the jungle with his father, who was later killed.[1] The memoir records that in one period starvation killed more people than bullets did.[1] Across these years he lost both parents, his younger sister and other relatives.[3]
When the Vietnamese attacked the Khmer Rouge, Nawuth left the area at night with about 30 people.[1] The family crossed into a refugee camp in Thailand run by the United Nations, where each person received one chicken every two weeks and a bag of rice each month.[1] He reached the United States by posing as another person's son.[4] After nine years of hardship he arrived in San Francisco and later settled in Portland, Oregon.[1] The afterword notes that Chantha, Van Lan, their son Vibol and Bunna live in Lyon, France.[1]
The book is written for readers ages 12 and up.[5] I'm Your Neighbor Books lists it as an own-voices account set in Cambodia and Thailand, with themes of lost childhood, the refugee journey, trauma and healing.[6]
Publication and editions
National Geographic published the book in Washington, D.C., in 2009.[2] Penguin Random House gives the publication date as October 13, 2009, and Kirkus Reviews gives October 1, 2009.[5][3] It has 128 pages and a Lexile reading level of 750L.[5] Hardcover and ebook editions exist.[6]
Reception
Kirkus Reviews reviewed the book in its September 1, 2009, issue, noting Nawuth's resourcefulness in keeping his surviving family alive.[3] Children's Literature called it a powerful story that could widen readers' understanding of the human capacity for good and evil.[6]
Access
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 Wikipedia
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Stark Library catalog record
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Kirkus Reviews, Alive in the Killing Fields
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Goodreads, Alive in the Killing Fields
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Penguin Random House
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 I'm Your Neighbor Books, Alive in the Killing Fields