On April 17, 1975, Khmer Rouge soldiers seized Cambodia's capital and began a genocide that left millions dead. This book, the basis of the Academy Award-winning film The Killing Fields, tells the true story of two men--an American reporter and his Cambodian assistant--during the fall of Phnom Penh, and their struggle to survive in its aftermath.
On April 17, 1975, Khmer Rouge soldiers seized Phnom Penh--the capital of Cambodia--and began a brutal genocide that left millions dead. Dith Pran, a Cambodian working as an assistant to American reporter Sydney H. Schanberg, was a witness to these events. While his employer managed to escape across the border, Dith Pran fled into the Cambodian countryside--and into the heart of the massacre.
The basis for the acclaimed movie The Killing Fields, this is the compelling account of the days before the fall of Phnom Penh. It's the story of one man's struggle for survival in a country that had become a death camp for millions of its citizens--and another man's failed efforts to keep his friend and colleague safe. Written within a year of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge, it is a work of both historical and literary significance.
Sydney H. Schanberg
A New York Times reporter in Cambodia during the time of the Khmer Rouge, Sydney H. Schanberg won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the genocide in 1975. His book The Death and Life of Dith Pran, based on his account of the search for a Cambodian colleague and friend who had disappeared into Cambodia's most dangerous regions after the fall of Phnom Penh, was made into the Academy Award-winning film The Killing Fields.After his return from Cambodia, Schanberg was appointed Metropolitan Editor of the New York Times--and later became an op-ed columnist for the New York Times and Newsday. He is also the author of Beyond The Killing Fields, an anthology of his coverage of conflict in countries including Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Iraq.
