INVISIBLE: Surviving the Cambodian Genocide: The Memoirs of Mac and Simone Leng

“The challenge was not just to survive, but to survive without losing our humanity.” ~ Mac and Simone LengThe Cambodian Genocide claimed the lives of an estimated two million people – more than one-fourth of the total Cambodian population. Under the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, cities were evacuated and the population dispersed and forced into labor camps, where scores died of starvation, malnutrition, and disease. Pol Pot targeted the extermination of certain minorities, the educated, and all those who had any connection with the former regime. Cambodia was to return to the “Year Zero,” a pre-history – where no hint of Western influence would exist. Because Mac Leng was a former school principal and an army intelligence officer under the Lon Nol regime, he had a double target on his back. Mac and Simone Leng survived almost unendurable conditions for three years, eight months, and twenty days. This is their heartrending story of resilience, courage, and the power of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable terror."INVISIBLE: Surviving the Cambodian Genocideis a Cambodian couple’s moving, personal, and straightforward story of living through one of the major disasters of the twentieth century. Millions of the Cambodian survivors of the 1975–1979 genocide have their own heart-rending accounts of what happened to them, packed like this book with dramatic, tragic events, individually experienced but in many respects similar because of the nature, ambition, and power of the Pol Pot regime. Surprisingly few of their accounts have appeared in English. This is a valuable addition to what we know." ~ Ben Kiernan, author ofHow Pol Pot Came to PowerandThe Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge,1975–1979, A. Whitney Griswold Professor of History, Professor of International and Area Studies, Founding Director of the Genocide Studies Program (1994–2015), Yale University"A family swept up in the Cambodian genocide describes their experiences in a matter-of-fact tone