How Not To Write a Nice Book

After I finished The Killing Fields, I wanted to freshen my memory about the history of Cambodia, and (to be quite honest) to reassure myself that the Khmer Rouge really did end up out of power eventually. I found this this article containing a round condemnation of "First They Killed My Father" by Loung Ung. The book was apparently written to manipulate a reader into sympathizing with the authoress, who largely made it up. That's not so bad, until you realize she was writing about being a survivor of the tyrany of the Khmer Rouge. The book is decried a travesty, stomping on the memory of the innocent Khmer-Cambodians brutalized during that awful time -with a hint of racism for good measure.

Mentioned more favorably are "Music Through the Dark" by Bree Lefreniere, narrated by Daran Kravanh, and "When Broken Glass Floats" by Chanrithy Him (both of which are now on my Wish List).

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It got me thinking. Losing 2,000,000-ish Kampucheans would be like losing 75,000,000-ish Americans these days. Imagine writing a book about it, from the perspective of a survivor, that was at least in large part made up and passed off as factual.

Not.

Nice.