Analysis Of Loung Ung's First They Killed My Father

Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father is a vivid, detailed memoir of a young girl’s experiences in Cambodia throughout the Khmer Rouge era. It records in expressive detail the horrors suffered by the Ung and her family while living under the oppressive rule of the insane Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, First They Killed Her Sister by Soneath Hor, Sody Lay and Grantham Quinn is a lengthy criticism in direct opposition to the aforementioned memoir. Although the authors of First They Killed Her Sister made some excellent points throughout their assessment of First They Killed my Father such as showing how Ung having misrepresented some aspects of Khmer culture and history, they completely and utterly failed in their attempt to discredit her based on the claims that she perpetuated racial tension and distorted what really happened in 1970s Cambodia, which breaks down the few good points they did have. The critics correctly assert and prove that Ung misrepresented certain aspects of Khmer culture and history, showing that at times, Ung’s description of what had happened was distorted or partially fabricated. One prominent example is depicted when Ung mentions a family trip to one of the temples at Angkor Wat, saying she “was only three or four years old then. With my hand in Pa’s, we entered the area of Angkor Thom, one of the many sites there” (Ung 109). While the Angkor monuments as a whole may not have been too badly damaged during the Cambodian Civil War, there obviously