First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

by Loung Ung

For a second, I would like you to think back to when you were five years old. What was it like? Do you remember your favorite toys, games, or television shows? Did you spend endless hours playing made-up games with your friends? Do you remember going to the local parks and playgrounds with your family?

Now imagine how you would feel if you came home one day, at the age of five, to find your family frantically packing their most prized possessions, staple foods, and just enough clothes to hold you through the next few months. After they finish packing, they hurry you into a truck and head out of your childhood town to an unknown location for an indefinite time period. You look around on your way out of town and notice that unrecognizable soldiers have infiltrated your precious streets. These new soldiers promise you and the rest of the evacuees that you will be allowed back in a couple of days. You naïvely believe them. You don’t understand the gravity of the situation around you. You aren’t aware that the country has been politically overthrown by a new cruel regime and that everyone’s lives are about to change forever. How would you feel? Scared? Anxious? Confused?

In Cambodia, between 1975 and 1979, this was the reality for many children, including author Loung Ung. In First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, Loung Ung illustrates her childhood experiences during this extremely difficult period in Cambodian history. She utilizes a present tense, first person child’s perspective to expose her readers to every minute detail of her experiences. Although readers will never fully understand the pain and torment Loung Ung experienced during the Cambodian Genocide, the author does a phenomenal job of capturing relatable emotions that every child has felt at some point. This element of relatability allows even readers from relatively privileged childhoods to fully immerse themselves in the memoir and visualize the destruction from a more personal perspective.

I would highly recommend Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers to anyone who is interested in learning more about how genocides, forced labor, and political unrest affect the victims. I would also recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about Cambodian history or culture. While the book heavily discusses the Khmer Rouge atrocities, it also effectively portrays Cambodian culture before, during, and after the regime change and genocide.