Loung Ung (Khmer: អ៊ឹង លួង; born 19 November 1970) is a Cambodian-American human-rights activist, lecturer and national spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World from 1997 to 2003.

[2] Published in the United States in 2000 by HarperCollins, it became a national bestseller, and in 2001 it won the award for "Excellence in Adult Non-fiction Literature" from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association.

The two married against her family's wishes, and eventually came to live with their children in a third-floor apartment in the center of the bustling capital city of Phnom Penh.

The family was relatively average and owned two cars and a truck, and lived in a house with running water, a flushable toilet, and an iron bathtub.

By her own account, Loung lived a happy and carefree life in a close-knit loving family, until April 17, 1975, when the Khmer Rouge gained control of Cambodia and evacuated Phnom Penh.

When the truck ran out of fuel, they gathered the bare essentials that they could carry and began what became a seven-day trek toward Bat Deng in a throng of evacuees, harried by the bullhorns of the soldiers.

Seng Im Ung, posing as the father of a peasant family, was fortunate to get by a military checkpoint in Kom Baul without being detained; many evacuees who were perceived to be a threat to the new government, because of their previous education or political position, were summarily executed there.

[9] On the seventh day, as the Ungs neared Bat Deng, Loung's uncle found them and arranged to bring them by wagon to his village of Krang Truop.

Ung and her family stayed only a few months in Krang Truop because Loung's father was afraid that newly arrived evacuees from Phnom Penh would reveal his identity.

He made arrangements for the family to be transported to Battambang, the village of Loung's grandmother, but his plan was thwarted by the Khmer Rouge soldiers.

Cut off from all outside communication and constantly in fear of soldiers who patrolled the village, the Ungs were forced by the Khmer Rouge to work long hours with very little food.

During this time, they avoided starvation with the help of Meng and Khouy, who brought them what little food they could get from their work camp, and Kim, who risked his life late at night by stealing corn from the crops guarded by the soldiers.

In May, agitated by screams in the night and the sudden disappearance of a neighboring family, Ay Ung sent Kim, Chou, and Loung away from Ro Leap with instructions to pretend they were orphans and never to come back.

In the ensuing chaos, her brother Kim and sister Chou found her on the road, and they set out for Pursat City, stopping only to rest and find food.

Several days later, they entered Pursat City, a refugee camp under the control of comparatively friendly Vietnamese troops, and eventually were given shelter by families willing to take them in.

During this time Meng married Eang, a twenty-year-old Chinese girl who was separated from her family, in a ceremony arranged by Loung's uncle and aunt.

Their sponsors brought the Ungs by car from Burlington International Airport to Essex Junction, Vermont, and ushered them into a small one-bedroom apartment above a dentist's office at 48 Main Street.

In a few months, Meng, whose grasp of English was good, obtained employment as an interpreter for newly arrived refugees in Vermont, and Eang found work at a local manufacturing company.

Meng and Eang both found employment with IBM on the evening shift, and Loung, now thirteen years old, cared for Maria after school until they returned home late at night.

Later that year Loung's teacher praised her for a sophomore English class paper she had written about growing up in Cambodia, and he encouraged her to write the whole story.

Sometime after returning to the U.S., Ung left Maine and moved to Washington, D.C., and in late 1996, joined the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF), an international humanitarian organization that provides physical rehabilitation clinics, prostheses, and mobility devices free of charge in many countries and in several provinces in Cambodia.

[13] Loung, Meng and Kim returned to Bat Deng in 1998 for a large family reunion with Khouy, Chou and all their relatives, including their 88-year-old grandmother.

The Ungs arranged a Buddhist ceremony to honour their parents, Sem and Ay, and their sisters, Keav and Geak, who had all died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime; the service was attended by many hundreds of relatives and friends.

In 2002, Loung married her college sweetheart, Mark Priemer, and bought two and a half acres of land in Cambodia just a short distance from her sister Chou's home.

[15] Among the complaints that some Cambodians have about Ung's works is that she was only five years old when the Khmer Rouge began its reign, and that she could not possibly have so vivid and detailed a memory of the events as they have been documented in her book.