Author Description

1979, Cambodia, Eastern Zone: Two comrades, twelve and fourteen, are RUNNING to get away from their infantry unit before the invading Vietnamese kill all of them. They reach the foot of a mountain - and disappear into the jungle. Neither of them has any food or water. They have no blankets, either, or protective clothing of any kind. They have no matches, no medicine, no maps, no money, no compass, no radio... they don't even know where they are. But these are the little problems. By getting themselves away from their unit and from the Vietnamese, they've put themselves right in between the two of them. IF they can squeeze out, they don't know the terrain and there's no way to get information - it's as though they've escaped to some lost planet. Their plan had been to get back to where they'd last seen their mothers, four years before. But they don't know if ANYONE in their families is still alive. Only one thing is clear - neither one of them will make it without the other. As they rest under a banyan tree they contemplate their chances. And suddenly, it's dark. The author, Lang Srey, was the younger of the two boys. He is one of only nine survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide to have written a book-length survivor's account (in English).