This is the rare testament of one of the few survivors of the Pol Pot regime, under which the Khmer Rouge killed 1.7 million people.

Sathavy Kim recounts the treacherous days after the invasion of Phnom Pen in 1975 by the Khmer Rouge, and the way she and her extended family fled together, working the black market until they had not a single possession to trade for food. They were rounded up with the other nonpeasants, identifiable by their lighter skin and soft hands as upper class, and forced to live with a family of workers until further notice. The villagers took them in reluctantly, and with much resentment. They had to work the rice fields, where they suffered the cuts and backache of harvesting rice. Soon after that, the internments began and the camp system was ready to receive its first victims. Deported at age 21, Savathy Kim spent four years of her life as prisoner of a korngchalat, a forced labor camp grouping celibate women or men age 16 and up. In 1998 she finally agreed, with the encouragement of a friend, to go back to the place where the camp stood, and as the memories returned, she remembered her life as Borgn Tha * and began to write.

*During the rule of Pol Pot, she was forced to change her name to Borng Tha, the name she refers to in the book’s title.