Book
Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind
Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind is a 2005 memoir by Loung Ung about her life after the Khmer Rouge.[1][2] It follows First They Killed My Father and tells, in alternating chapters, her new life in Vermont and the life of her sister Chou in Cambodia.[1][3]
About the book
Loung Ung came to America in 1980 as a ten-year-old refugee, after years of hunger, violence and loss under the Khmer Rouge.[3] Her eldest brother, Meng, could afford to bring only one sibling, and he chose her, the youngest. She became the lucky child of the title.[1][4] With Meng and his wife, Eang, she fled first to Thailand, and an American church sponsored the family to live in Vermont.[1] Her one surviving sister and two brothers stayed behind.[4]
In Burlington, Loung learns about Disney characters, Christmas trees and Halloween. She learns that Fourth of July fireworks are not bombs, and that she no longer has to hide food in her bed at night.[3][5] The family lives on food stamps at first, and she is teased at school for her English and her Cambodian features.[1][2] Memories of the war stay with her. In time she earns a full scholarship to college and studies at St. Michael's College.[1][2]
Chou, just two years apart from Loung, had bonded with her over the deaths of their parents and sisters.[3] Raised a city girl, she now lives in a hut in a poor rural village with her aunt, uncle and cousins. There is little food, no electricity and no running water, and land mines and Khmer Rouge fighters remain.[5][1] The family, once upper class, is reduced to peasant status. Their brother Khouy is forced to join the army to earn money.[1] Chou struggles to get an education, and at eighteen she marries in a match arranged by her aunt and uncle.[2][1]
The two stories run from 1980 to 2003, through the fighting between Vietnamese troops and the Khmer Rouge. They end when Loung returns to Cambodia and the sisters meet again after fifteen years apart.[1][5][3]
Writing
Loung tells her own story in the first person and the present tense. She recorded Chou's story, translated it into English and wrote it in the third person.[1][5] Her account of Chou's life draws on her many return visits to Cambodia.[3]
Publication and editions
HarperCollins in New York published the first edition on April 12, 2005.[2][3] Its length is given as 288 pages by Kirkus and Wikipedia, and as xv, 268 pages with 16 pages of plates by the Los Angeles Times and the Stanford catalog.[2][1][5][3] ISBNs include 978-0-06-073395-7 and 9780060733940.[1][3] A paperback followed on April 11, 2006.[4]
Lucky Child was followed by Lulu in the Sky.[1]
Reception
Kirkus Reviews called it "a moving story of transition, transformation, and reunion." It praised the Vermont scenes but found Chou's chapters, told secondhand, less vivid.[2] In the Los Angeles Times, Merle Rubin called the book "an unforgettable portrait of resilience and largeness of spirit."[5]
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 1.13 Wikipedia, Lucky Child
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Kirkus Reviews, Lucky Child
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Stanford Libraries SearchWorks, Lucky child
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 HarperCollins, Lucky Child
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Los Angeles Times, Cambodian sisters cross a divide of years, cultures (April 29, 2005)