Daughter Of The Killing Fields: Asrei's Story

Asrei was a toddler when the Khmer Rouge killed her father. In prison shortly after, she fell asleep in her mother's arms and woke to find her gone forever. Daughter of the Killing Fields tells how Asrei (Theary Seng) spent her early years passed from one set of relatives to another, amidst a backdrop of soldiers, landmines, inadequate refugee camps, and unrelenting death. Confronted by a sea of human suffering from the age of three, she soon learnt that 'life is just a breath'. This is the powerfully haunting story of how Asrei, her brothers, aunts, and uncles managed to survive, eventually emigrating to the West. It begins and ends 21 years later, as Asrei confronts the man she holds 'accountable for the death of my parents, and for the blood of 1.7 million others.' 'Theary Seng, a young Khmer-American lawyer, experienced the full horror of the Pol Pot regime (1975-1979) when she was a child in her native Cambodia. In this compelling, clear-headed memoir, she exhibits all the courage and resilient street smarts of a true survivor while relating the story of almost incomprehensible suffering and loss.' - David Chandler, author of Brother Number One