Loung Ung was only five years old when the Khmer Rouge began their murderous siege on Cambodia. In her autobiographical book, First They Killed My Father, Ung gives a riveting first person account of her survival and her family's sufferings in a time when the Khmer Rouge was killing millions of Cambodians.

She begins her story by depicting her average upper middle class life in Phom Pen, where her father works for the Lon Nol government. When the Khmer Rouge take over the city her family is forced to assume the identity of a peasants in order to not be killed by the soldiers. Because the family is hiding the secret of their lives in Phom Pen, their struggle for survival becomes harder with each passing day. Through her story Ung vividly accounts the brutality of the Khmer Rouge regime and the torture, execution, and starvation going on...