Creator
Loung Ung
អ៊ឹង លួង
Cambodian American memoirist and activist whose trilogy traces survival under the Khmer Rouge and life afterward in the United States.
Loung Ung (អ៊ឹង លួង, Loung Ung) is a Cambodian American author, speaker and human rights activist who wrote the memoir First They Killed My Father (2000).[1][2] Her three memoirs trace her survival under the Khmer Rouge and the life she built afterward in the United States.[3][2]
Early life
Ung was a young child in Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge took the city in April 1975.[2][1] Under the regime she was trained as a child soldier.[2][4] In 1980 she escaped by boat to Thailand and spent five months in a refugee camp. She was then resettled in Vermont, sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Holy Family Church in Essex Junction.[4][3][5]
English was her third language, and she spent years learning to read and write it. She kept a diary to hold on to her stories while she could not yet express herself well in spoken English.[3] In 1993 she graduated from Saint Michael's College in Vermont with a bachelor's degree in political science.[3][5]
Activism
Ung's activism began in 1993, when she became a community educator at a shelter for abused women in Maine.[2][1] In 1995 she returned to Cambodia for the first time since her escape.[2][1] She moved to Washington, D.C., and from 1997 to 2003 she was national spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World.[1][3] She has continued her landmine work through the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.[3] Her campaigns have also addressed violence against women and the use of child soldiers.[2]
Ung has said she published her story partly to build a larger platform for speaking about landmines, war and child soldiers.[3] She has spoken at Stanford, Dartmouth, Georgetown, the University of Iowa and the United Nations, and her website counts more than 50 trips back to Cambodia.[2] The World Economic Forum selected her as one of its "100 Global Youth Leaders of Tomorrow."[4]
Books
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers recounts her life in Cambodia from 1975 to 1980, including the executions, starvation, disease and forced labor of the Khmer Rouge years.[1] HarperCollins published it in the United States in 2000, and it became a national bestseller.[1][6] In 2001 it received the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association award for excellence in adult nonfiction.[4][6] It has been published in twelve countries and nine languages; the Manoa interview gives eleven countries and more than a dozen languages, among them Khmer, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese.[1][6] Saint Michael's College chose it as the first-year common text for its class of 2020.[5]
The memoir became a Netflix film, First They Killed My Father, directed by Angelina Jolie and released in September 2017. Ung co-wrote it with Jolie.[4][2]
A "Mission Accomplished" banner at a 2003 Iraq War event moved her to write her second book.[3] Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind (2005) follows her adjustment to life in the United States alongside the lives of surviving relatives in Cambodia during the fighting between Vietnamese forces and the Khmer Rouge.[1][3] Her third memoir, Lulu in the Sky, completed the trilogy.[3] A graphic-novel adaptation of her work is forthcoming from Astra Publishing.[2]
Cleveland
Ung lives in the Cleveland area, where she owns three restaurants: Bar Cento, Bier Market and Market Garden.[3]
Recognition
- Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association award for excellence in adult nonfiction, for First They Killed My Father (2001)[4]
- One of the World Economic Forum's "100 Global Youth Leaders of Tomorrow"[4]
- Col. Donald G. Cook Distinguished Citizen Award, Saint Michael's College (2018)[5]
- Cleveland Arts Prize honoree[3]
Works
- First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (Book)
- Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind (Book)
- Lulu in the Sky: A Daughter of Cambodia Finds Love, Healing, and Double Happiness (Book)
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Loung Ung, Wikipedia
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 Loung Ung, official site
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 The Cleveland Arts Prize, Loung Ung (2025)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Omega Institute, Loung Ung
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Saint Michael's College, Loung Ung talks justice, activism (2018)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Manoa, Surviving the Peace: An Interview with Loung Ung