On Tuesday, February 27 from 11:00 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. we will be joined in room S-132 by internationally recognized author and advocate for peace Loung Ung via video conference. Her story should be of great interest to English, history, and political science classes as well as those who want to learn about stories of the immigrant experience, surviving trauma and genocide, or to anyone who saw the Netflix film adaptation of the book. Please contact Sarah Shurts [email protected] if you are interested in bringing your class to the discussion since seating will be limited to 75 (include how many students you plan to bring).

Loung’s award-winning book, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, is a national bestseller that has been published in fourteen countries. It won the ALAPA award for “Excellence in Adult Non-fiction Literature” in 2001 and was selected by the ALA as a ‘Best Book for Young Adults’. In 2017, Loung co-wrote the screenplay to adapt her first book, First They Killed My Father, into a 2017 Netflix Original movie directed by Angelina Jolie. The movie is based on Loung’s memoir and is now streaming in 190 countries. She is also the author of Lucky Child and Lulu in the Sky: a Daughter of Cambodia Finds Love, Healing, and Double Happiness. Her work is frequently taught in high schools and universities worldwide.

When Loung Ung was five years old, the Khmer Rouge army stormed into Phnom Penh, forcing her family to flee and disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans while her siblings were sent to labor camps. Some two million Cambodians – out of a population of seven million –died at the hands of the infamous Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime. Among the victims were both of Loung’s parents, two sisters, and 20 other relatives. In 1980, Loung, her older brother Meng and his wife, escaped by boat to Thailand, where they spent five months in a refugee camp before relocating to the United States in Vermont.

Harrowing, yet hopeful, Loung’s story is an unforgettable account of a family shaken and shattered, yet miraculously sustained by courage and love in the face of unspeakable brutality. With a writer’s understanding of story telling, Loung wraps her personal story in history and politics. Chapter by chapter, Loung walks her audience through the most horrific events of her life—separations, starvation, rage, heartbreaks, loss—and shares how she came out of them with her love, humor, and spirituality intact.