Bestselling author Loung Ung will be on campus Nov. 11 for a presentation and book signing starting at 10 a.m. in the Kehrl Auditorium of the Vistatech Center. Ung will speak to students and the campus community about her memoir, “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers.”
This event is a collaborative event hosted by the Schoolcraft College Focus Series and Pageturners and supported by the Schoolcraft Center for Experimental Learning and Schoolcraft College Foundation.
Ung is a human rights activist and spokesperson for the Campaign for the Campaign for Landmine Free World. This was part of the Campaign to Ban Landmines, which was a Nobel Peace Prize-winning campaign.
She has released two memoirs about her time in the Cambodia genocide, the first is “First They Killed my Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers,” which is the book the Pageturners selected for Nov to discuss, and the second is “Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind.”
Because of her first book, Ung won the Asian/Pacific American Librarians’ Association Award for Excellence in Adult Non-fiction Literature.
Her first memoir was then turned into an award-winning 2017 Netflix Original film directed by Angelina Jolie. Ung discusses the film as an amalgamation of 20,000 other Cambodian’s, a majority of which were survivors or were descendants of people impacted by the genocide.
“The film was an opportunity to put our imprints and our sole DNA onto the screen and so I feel like it was a great representation of all of our story,” said Ung when discussing the film.
Ung was only 5 when the Cambodia genocide happened. She was forced to leave her home of Phenom Penn.
This is around when she starts her book. She explains what she went through during these four years that the Khmer Rouge took control over her country and her life. It contains intense scenes that she recalls vividly, so it can be very emotional to read. Readers will realize this is a story about family and love during such a devastating time.
“I wanted to write a story of love that exists in the midst of war. It’s a story of love for a child, for her parents, for a father, for his children, that still exists in the midst of the darkness of times” said Ung.
After escaping Cambodia via a fishing boat to Vietnam, she moved to America. Here she received an education and decided to go into political activism. Her second memoir, “Lucky Child” is about the time she spent in Vermont with her brothers and the struggles of building her new life here.
Ung has spoken to audiences worldwide, reaching places from Stanford to the UN.
In her presentation, she will be discussing resilience, leadership, impact writing and storytelling. She advocates for storytelling as a part of the discussion of such topics instead of just focusing on the statistics or numbers.
“Facts and data will wake people up, then you forget about it. But once you read a story about a family member or families, you remember the family, and if you can remember the family, you can remember their humanity,” Ung explains.
Ung will answer questions from the audience after her presentation. It is encouraged to read Ung’s book prior to the event and bring a copy of the book for her to sign after. No books will be on site for purchasing.
This event is free and open to the public.
