Like many people who lived through the Khmer Rouge, Ung Loung has had to deal with the horrors that happened to her and her family. But instead of keeping it inside, Ung Loung found a channel to heal by writing books. Three of them in fact. In her third book, “Lulu in the Sky,” the author says, she wanted to describe “culture and the vibrancy of Khmer history.”
“So it’s a happy book, in the sense that my family and I are reunited and I was able to find love, healing and my reconnection to Cambodia,” she told VOA Khmer.
That’s a departure from her first book, “First They Killed My Father,” which recounts her ordeals under the Khmer Rouge, and follows “Lucky Child,” the story of the parallel lives of Ung Loung and her sister Chou.
“Lulu,” which was published on April 17, in remembrance of the lives lost under the Khmer Rouge, is more about Cambodians.
“We, as Khmer, are working to survive,” Ung Loung said. “And we are reclaiming our laughter, our family and our culture.”