Haing Ngor: A Cambodian Odyssey

New York, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company - Atheneum, 1987. First Printing . Hard Back. Fine/Very Good. 6 1/2" X 10. Barbaria, Darlene - Jacket Design. 478 Pages Indexed. Tight square book with no noted defects. Interior text pages are flawless. Dust jacket price $19.95 has NOT been clipped. This is the extraordinary story of a man who lost his family and witnessed the total destruction of his homeland. He spent four years under the brutal communist Khmer Rouge regime. He was beaten and tortured. He stole food at night for him self and his wife, Huoy. Half-starved, she died in his arms during childbirth. Born in a tranquil Cambodia, Haing Ngor grew up in a close-knit family and made his way through medical school, where he studied to become an obstetrician and a surgeon. He had his own clinic in Phnom Penh and a promising future. But in 1975, with the takeover by Khmer Rouge guerrillas, Dr. Ngor's way of life, with that of many Cambodians, was swept away like debris in a flash flood. His mother and father, his brothers and the wives were among the early victims of the execution squads; their crime was having prospered under the old regime. When Haing Ngor was sent to the forced labor camps with Huoy, who was a teacher, they had to disguise their pasts to stay alive, and he could only serve as a doctor in deepest secrecy. To those who asked about his past he told them he had driven a cab. Yet no matter how unbearable life became -- the Khmer Rouge chopped off the end of his finger, hacked off part of his ankle with an axe -- Haing Ngor never gave in. The labor camps never defeated him even as he went from 140 to 70 pounds, or when they hung him over a slow fire for four days. Finally, this man of unbelievable courage and strength rescued his niece and escaped to Thailand, where he spent a year serving as a doctor before coming to America. In two years, Haing Ngor would return to Thailand as an actor portraying a Cambodia interpreter and; journalist in the movie The Killing Fields. It was a performance of such power and depth that he won the Academy Award. Although excited by the award, Dr. Ngor said my best performances were over before I left Cambodia. And the prize there was much greater. A bold and moving book that reminds us of the nightmare of war and shows us a man who miraculously survived. Large heavy book that may incur additional charges for Priority Shipping to some locations.