January 14, 2025

Page Count Live: Writing Toward Peace with Loung Ung

1 hour 9 minutes

In a special episode recorded before a live audience at the Inkubator writing conference, Laura interviews Loung Ung, whose bestselling memoirs detailing her experiences under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia have moved readers worldwide. Ung discussed the genesis of her writing life, writing in a child’s voice for an adult audience, writing and publishing in English as a nonnative English speaker, overcoming anxiety about sharing her family’s story, how she met Angelia Jolie and came to co-write the screenplay adaptation of First They Killed My Father, her experiences with the filming process in Cambodia, how others can start on the activist’s path, what it means to write toward peace, and more.

This conversation was recorded on September 20, 2024 at Cleveland Public Library as part of Literary Cleveland’s free Inkubator writing conference.

Loung Ung is an author, lecturer, and activist who has devoted her life to advancing human rights and equality in Cambodia and around the world. She is the author of the memoir First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (HarperCollins 2000), which tells the story of her survival under the Khmer Rouge regime, as well as Lucky Child and Lulu in the Sky, additional memoirs published by HarperCollins. She is currently working on a novel. In 2013, Ung expanded her activism as a writer for Girl Rising, a documentary film about girls’ education around the world. First They Killed My Father was adapted into a Netflix movie in 2017 by director by Angelina Jolie from a screenplay co-written by Jolie and Ung.

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and an edited transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email [email protected] (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram or Facebook.

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