Lucky Child Page 32
—Mary Pipher, Ph.D., author of Reviving Ophelia:
Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls
“Lucky Child is a tender, searing journey of two sisters, two worlds, two destinies. It is about the long-term consequences of war—how it changes everything, annihilates, uproots, and separates families. And it is about how humans triumph—building lives wherever they land and finding their way back to each other.” —Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues
“Heartrending and eloquent…. A moving reminder of human resiliency and the power of family bonds.”
—Newsweek
“The genocide and subjugation of millions of Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge have been well documented…. Lucky Child is a reminder that each of those terrible losses was suffered individually…. While [Ung] writes convincingly of terror, death, and loss—her account of the death of a young cousin in Cambodia is heartbreaking—even more fresh and perceptive are her observations of everyday life. When she looks in the mirror, she craves to see her family members, dead and alive, but ‘we do not have a single picture of them and my face is now the only image I have to remember them by’ [A] fiercely honest and affecting memoir.”
—Seattle Times
“Remarkable…. Lucky Child is part adventure, part history, and, in large, part love story about family. The Ungs’ tenacity and enduring kindness testify to the very best of human nature. After surviving ‘the worst kind of inhumanity,’ the Ungs remain human.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Ung brings third and first world disparities into discomforting focus and gracefully dramatizes the metaphorical joining together of her haunted past and her current identity as a privileged Cambodian American. When the narratives fuse at the sisters’ long-awaited reunion, their clasping of hands throws wide the floodgates to tamped-down memories—a cathartic release that readers will tearfully, gratefully share.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“This book is alternately heart-wrenching and heartwarming, as it follows the parallel lives of Loung Ung and her closest sister, Chou, during the fifteen years it took for them to reunite.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Many recent books have told the tale of genocide and survival, but, in Lucky Child, Loung Ung has given us a book as unusual as it is heartbreaking—the story of a family torn in two after genocide…. Loung has managed to follow First They Killed My Father with a book every bit as gripping and important, and she has given us a unique glimpse into America’s melting pot—a melting pot born of indescribable suffering but brimming with irrepressible life.”
—Samantha Power, author of “A Problem from Hell”:
America and the Age of Genocide
“Vivid prose…. Ung imparts freshness to a fairly familiar immigrant’s tale…. A moving story of transition, transformation, and reunion.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Lucky Child is a painful yet lyrical story of the lengths to which one family will go to protect its own. Ung offers a devastating look at the enormous global effects of political oppression. Yet for all the sadness in her personal story, Lucky Child is also a soaring tale of human spirit.”
—BookPage
“Loung Ung’s Lucky Child is a rich narrative that explores the ravages of war and the strength of family bonds…. Powerful and moving… Lucky Child is far too relevant to our own time.”
—Amnesty International
“As piercing and poignant as its title, Lucky Child is the remarkable account of two sisters divided by history and riven by tragedy, and the journey which made one an American who would not forget her homeland, or the kin she left behind. It is we who are lucky that Loung Ung is such a gifted writer, and that she has chosen to share her story.”
—Richard North Patterson, author of Balance of Power
“I encourage everyone to read this deeply moving and very important book. Equal to the strength of the book is the woman who wrote it. She is a voice for her people and they are lucky to have her.”
—Angelina Jolie, Goodwill Ambassador for the United
Nations High Commission for Refugees
“This is a strong story, simply told. Ung helps us understand what happens when a family is torn apart by politics, adversity, and war. Change the names of the characters, give them another country of origin, and this story of dislocation becomes a tragedy millions of immigrants have lived through but seldom talk about…. Ung’s story is a compelling and inspirational one that touches universal chords. Americans would do well to read it, no matter where they were born.”
—Washington Post Book World
Books by Loung Ung
Lulu in the Sky
Lucky Child
First They Killed My Father
Copyright
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2005 by HarperCollins Publishers.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
LUCKY CHILD. Copyright © 2005 by Loung Ung.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © 2005 ISBN: 978-0-06-201351-4
FIRST HARPER PERENNIAL EDITION PUBLISHED 2006.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:
Ung, Loung.
Lucky child: a daughter of Cambodia reunites with the sister she left behind / Loung
Ung.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-06-073394-2 (alk. paper)
1. Ung, Chou. 2. Ung, Chou—Family. 3. Cambodian Americans—
Biography. 4. Refugees—United States—Biography. 5. Sisters—United States—
Biography. 6. Sisters—Cambodia—Biography. 7. Cambodia—Biography.
8. Political atrocities—Cambodia—History—20th century. I. Title.
EI84.K45U54 2005
973’.049593’0092—dc22
[B] 2004054346
ISBN-10:0-0-073395-0 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 97S-0-06-073395-7 (pbk.)
06 07 08 09 10 NMSG/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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