Survival in the killing fields

The author, winner of an Academy Award for his role in "The Killing Fields," tells his own story of flight from the Khmer Rouge who forced him underground where he worked as a doctor at his own peril. Nothing has shaped my life as much as surviving the Pol Pot regime. I am a survivor of the Cambodian holocaust. That's who I am. He became famous through his academy award-winning performance as Dith Pran in the film The Killing Fields , but the key to Haing Ngor's screen success was the terrible truth of his own experiences in the rice paddies and labour camps of revolutionary Cambodia. Here, in a gripping memoir of life under the communist Khmer Rouge regime, he reveals the country's descent into a hell beyond our imaginings: a world of war slaves and senseless brutality, where family life simply ceases to be. But with the pain he also gives us hope and an illuminating example of how the best sort of love can actually be strengthened through the shared experience of a life-threatening ordeal. An eyewitness account of the real killing fields by an extraordinary survivor, this book is both a reminder of the horrors of war and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. "He became famous through his academy award-winning performance as Dith Pran in the film The Killing Fields, but the key to Haing Ngor's screen success was the terrible truth of his own experiences in the rice paddies and labor camps of revolutionary Cambodia." "Here, in a gripping memoir of life under the communist Khmer Rouge regime, he reveals the country's descent into a hell beyond our imaginings: a world of war slaves and senseless brutality, where family life simply ceases to be. But with the pain he also gives us hope and an illuminating example of how the best sort of love can actually be strengthened through the shared experience of a life-threatening ordeal. An eyewitness account of the real killing fields by an extraordinary survivor, this book is both a reminder of the horrors of war and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit."--BOOK JACKET Introduction: The prize -- Early rebellions -- Education -- Romance and coup -- Civil War -- The city of Bonjour -- The fall -- The wheel of history -- Exodus from Phnom Penh -- Wat Kien Svay Krao -- Medicine for Angka -- Return to the village -- The crocodile loses its lake -- New directions -- The plough -- Sickness -- The parade of the selfish and the dying -- Reorganization -- Bells -- Angka Leu -- The wat -- The king of death -- Candles -- The rains -- Rice farming -- The dam -- The cracks begin to show -- Drops of water -- Happiness -- Crossing the sea -- Grief -- Retreat -- Liberation -- Battambang -- The danger zone -- The locket -- Saloth Sar -- Okay, bye-bye -- To America -- Starting over -- The Killing fields -- Celebrity -- Kama -- Epilogue / by Roger Warner. My earliest memory is standing at the back door of my parents' house and gazing at the rice fields.