The Last One

"A child 's unvarnished truth...stunning...heartbreaking...wrenching." The more I try to forget, the more the memories haunt me. Imagine that you are six years old. You have lost your father, mother, and siblings within the last year because of war. Imagine making a trip across a jungle infested with landmines. Imagine chasing snakes for food. Imagine a childhood spent taking beatings from soldiers and not being able to fight back. I was barely five years old in April 1975 when my family in Cambodia were forced by the Communist Khmer Rouge to leave our home. In our jungle encampment, among hundreds of other frightened evacuees, my younger brother became ill and died. After our next relocation, the soldiers took my father to build a canal to water the rice fields. He never returned. My older sister was forced to live in a girl's work camp, far away. After I recovered from a deadly illness, my mother died from an illness, in front of me. I was now alone. There was no one. I was six years old. Left to my own wits, I caught and ate flying termites, grasshoppers, crickets, fish, and snakes, anything edible. I was always hungry. Like a starving puppy, I stole leftover bones and sucked the juice out of them. Then, confined in various encampments with thousands of prisoners who were forced to build canals, I also was forced to help with the backbreaking labor in the water-laden rice fields. I kept running away, back to the forest. After three years and eight months under the brutal Khmer Rouge, the horrors of my life experience were not over, and surviving without any relatives was just the beginning. It was nine harsh years until I emigrated to America. My rebellious spirit kept me alive. "This is the breathtaking story of an orphan who survived the Khmer Rouge regime. Marin was condemned to a nightmare that few can imagine--growing up with the murderer of his family. Torn between love and hate, this is an incredible story about survival and forgiveness." --Youk Chhang, Di