Loung Ung - Reception

Reception

Ung's first book has been criticized by members of the Cambodian community in the United States, a number of whom believe that it is more a work of fiction than an actual autobiography. She has also been accused of misrepresenting the Khmer race and playing on ethnic stereotypes for the purpose of self-aggrandizement and over-dramatization to increase sales and publicity.

Among the complaints that some Cambodians have about her 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. Her detractors also claim that, as a child of a Chinese mother and a Khmer father highly placed in the Phnom Penh government, she paints a very unfavorable picture of Khmer villagers.

There is a picture in First They Killed My Father that was supposedly taken "on a family trip to Angkor Wat" in 1973 or 1974. A civil war had been in progress in Cambodia since 1970 and the Khmer Rouge was in control of Siem Reap (the location of Angkor Wat) from 1973 onward. Critics state that it is not likely that Ung's family would be vacationing at that time in that region of Cambodia, that the picture was taken at Wat Phnom, which is in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and that Ung's memory is therefore unreliable.

In late 2000, Ung responded to the earliest of these criticisms.