***Ein ergreifendes Buch über eine zerstörte Kindheit in einem zerstörten Land – jetzt auch verfilmt von Angelina Jolie*** Kambodscha im April 1975. Soldaten der Roten Khmer rücken in die Hauptstadt Phnom Penh vor. Das Land versinkt in Hunger, Grauen und Mord. Aus dem umhegten Kind Loung Ung wird ein elternloser Flüchtling, der im kambodschanischen Dschungel verzweifelt ums Überleben kämpft. Unsagbares Leid bricht über sie herein. Loung muss sich in einem Waisenlager zum Kindersoldaten ausbilden lassen, ihre Brüder und Schwestern kämpfen in Arbeitslagern verzweifelt um ihr Leben. Allein die Hoffnung, ihre Familie am Ende der Schreckensherrschaft wiederzusehen, spendet Loung Ung Trost. »Reden heißt, meine Familie in große Gefahr zu bringen. Mir fünf Jahren beginne ich zu verstehen, wie es ist, allein zu sein, still und einsam mit der Erwartung, dass mich jeder verletzen könnte.«
Tochter Kambodschas Reihe
Diese Serie befasst sich mit tiefgreifenden Traumata und komplexen Emotionen, die mit Konflikten und Verlusten einhergehen. Verfolgen Sie die Reise eines jungen Mädchens, das darum kämpft, sich mit seiner Vergangenheit zu versöhnen und gleichzeitig nach Glück strebt. Die Erzählungen erforschen Themen wie Widerstandsfähigkeit, Identität und den beschwerlichen Weg zur Heilung und Selbstfindung. Es ist ein bewegendes Zeugnis des Überlebens und des menschlichen Geistes.
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In 1980, at the age of ten, Loung Ung escaped a devastated Cambodia and flew to the US as a refugee. She and her eldest brother, with whom she escaped, left behind their three surviving siblings, and her book is alternately heart-wrenching and heart-warming, as it follows the parallel lives of Loung and her closest sister, Chou, during the 15 years it took for them to be reunited. Their two worlds were very different, and Loung's depiction of the contrast between her life in the affluent West and that of her sister, who navigated her way through landmine-strewn fields and survived raids by the Khmer Rouge, is laced with the guilt she feels about being the lucky one. This powerful story helps us to understand what happens when a family is torn apart by politics, adversity and war. It is also the compelling and inspirational tale of a remarkable woman.
Concluding the trilogy that started with her bestselling memoir, First They Killed My Father, Loung Ung illuminates her struggle to reconcile with her past while moving forward toward happiness. When readers first met Loung Ung in her critically acclaimed memoir First They Killed My Father, she was a young, innocent child in Cambodia. But forced by the Khmer Rouge into the life of a child soldier, she soon found herself locked in a desperate struggle for survival in Cambodia's notorious killing fields. In Lucky Child, her life took a turn. As a refugee in Vermont, she grappled with post-traumatic stress, cultural assimilation roadblocks, and the abandonment of her sister in Cambodia. Now, Lulu in the Sky tells the next chapter in Ung's life, revealing her daily struggle to keep darkness and depression at bay while she attends college and falls in love with Mark Priemer, a Midwestern archetype of American optimism. Lulu in the Sky is the story of Ung's tentative steps into love, activism, and marriage—a journey that takes her to a Cambodian village to reconnect with her mother's spirit, to a vocation focused on healing the landscape of her birth, and to the patience and unconditional support of a very special man.