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Pin Yathay
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Stay Alive, My Son Paperback – November 28, 2000

by Pin Yathay (Author), David Chandler (Author), David P. Chandler (Foreword),
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 146 ratings
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On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh to open a new and appalling chapter in the story of the twentieth century. On that day, Pin Yathay was a qualified engineer in the Ministry of Public Works. Successful and highly educated, he had been critical of the corrupt Lon Nol regime and hoped that the Khmer Rouge would be the patriotic saviors of Cambodia.

In Stay Alive, My Son, Pin Yathay provides an unforgettable testament of the horror that ensued and a gripping account of personal courage, sacrifice and survival. Documenting the 27 months from the arrival of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh to his escape into Thailand, Pin Yathay's story is a powerful and haunting memoir of Cambodia's killing fields.

With seventeen members of his family, Pin Yathay were evacuated by the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh, taking with them whatever they might need for the three days before they would be allowed to return to their home. Instead, they were moved on from camp to camp, their possessions confiscated or abandoned. As days became weeks and weeks became months, they became the "New People," displaced urban dwellers compelled to live and work as peasants, their days were filled with forced manual labor and their survival dependent on ever more meager communal rations. The body count mounted, first as malnutrition bred rampant disease and then as the Khmer Rouge singled out the dissidents for sudden death in the darkness.

Eventually, Pin Yathay's family was reduced to just himself, his wife, and their one remaining son, Nawath. Wracked with pain and disease, robbed of all they had owned, living on the very edge of dying, they faced a future of escalating horror. With Nawath too ill to travel, Pin Yathay and his wife, Any, had to make the heart-breaking decision whether to leave him to the care of a Cambodian hospital in order to make a desperate break for freedom. "Stay alive, my son," he tells Nawath before embarking on a nightmarish escape to the Thai border.

First published in 1987, the Cornell edition of Stay Alive, My Son includes an updated preface and epilogue by Pin Yathay and a new foreword by David Chandler, a world-renowned historian of Cambodia, who attests to the continuing value and urgency of Pin Yathay's message.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    272 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Cornell University Press
  4. Publication date
    November 28, 2000
  5. Reading age
    18 years and up
  6. Dimensions
    6 x 0.61 x 9 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0801486998
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0801486999
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

During the Kampuchean revolutionary madness... all the urban population was driven out to work in the country, creating new peasant communities which operated on strict, dogmatic Maoist lines.... Pin Yathay's story is told with no attempt at self-aggrandizement.... For he has to live with the shame of having deserted his own child in order to facilitate his escape, of losing his wife in the jungle through ineptitude: it is a revelation of prehistoric strength within the human conscience which is far beyond our imaginings.

― Times Literary Supplement

In 1975, the Republic of Cambodia was torn asunder by the 'liberating' forces of Pol Pot. Pin Yathay, an engineer employed by the Ministry of Public Works, was a witness to the tragedy.... His entire family and unnumbered friends were annihilated.... A heart-rending account of the disintegration of an entire social system, caused by the paranoid policies of Khmer Rouge cadres.

― Christian Science Monitor

This memoir describes in harrowing detail life in the early years of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.... Written in the hope that his missing son might see the book and be reunited with his father, Pin's memoir is a direct, honest account of his two years on the prison farm.

― MultiCultural Review

About the Author

Pin Yathay is a project engineer with the French Development Agency. David Chandler is Professor Emeritus of History at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His books include Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cornell University Press (November 28, 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0801486998
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0801486999
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.61 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 146 ratings

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  1. Pin Yathay

    Pin Yathay

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  2. John Man

    John Man

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    I write mainly about Mongolia. Why Mongolia? It’s a long story. Here’s a shot version.

    I am the child of Kentish villages, Rolvenden and Benenden. I’ve been escaping ever since. At the King’s School, Canterbury, I had an inspiring German teacher. So: German (and French) at Oxford and a year in Vienna, which left me intrigued by the Iron Curtain, and what it hid. During a post-grad in the History of Science, I helped plan an expedition to Mongolia, because in the 1960s the far side of the Soviet Empire sounded truly exotic. To join the expedition, I became the sole student of Mongolian at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. The trip was a crazy idea, and never happened, but it left me yearning to go.

    Ambitious to know the world, I joined Reuters. A year in Bonn revealed a profound ignorance of recent history. So I joined a magazine, The History of the 20th Century, working with two great historians, AJP Taylor and JM Roberts. Publishing with Time -Life Books led to life as a freelance writer, first in Oxford, raising a wonderful family, now grown and flown, then raising another in London, ditto.

    I wrote forgettable books for forgotten companies. I lived with a jungle tribe in Ecuador, ghosted, wrote two thrillers, drafted several un-makable film-scripts, and at last, in the 1990s, after the Soviet Union and its empire collapsed, I went to Mongolia.

    I discovered an amazing land, amazing people, and world-changing history that is remarkably under-appreciated. I try to bring the past alive by combining history with personal experience. This 25-year passion has inspired a score of books and driven me to the outer limits of the Mongol Empire in China, Japan, Central Asia and Hungary.

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
146 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Mao Dom
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2023
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Better written than most memoirs, this book tells a story few novelists could imagine. Marxists come off as the cult psychopaths they are. Heartbreaking and inspirational at the same time, this is a great book!
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Timbo69
5.0 out of 5 stars Stay Alive, My Son
Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2014
Verified Purchase
An extremely well written account of the terrible tragedy that befell the Cambodian people during the years the Khmer Rouge ruled over the country. A heart wrenching story of a man who lost everything, but still somehow managed to find the will to survive...a story no doubt familiar to every single survivor who came through that terrible period.

Having read many books on this subject previously, I find Pin Yathays account provides an incredible insight into the events leading up to the Khmer Rouge taking power and the mindset of the innocent civilians at that time who were deceived into thinking this change of government would bring about a peaceful new era of prosperity and hope, after years of corruption and war.

I pray Pin Yathay may one day find his remaining missing son and eventually be reunited peacefully with his family once again..
One person found this helpful
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tony giffone
4.0 out of 5 stars Memoir of the Khmer Rouge years
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2013
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This is a moving memoir about surviving the years of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. There are many memoirs in print on the subject but one cannot have too many reminders about man's inhumanity to man.
2 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Reads like riveting novel
Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2021
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His story seems like it could happen so easily here, too. Scary and incredible and riveting read
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Tang WL
5.0 out of 5 stars Life and death
Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2020
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Well written and very sad to read about sufferings and deaths. The list of his wife at the very end is tragic.
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Arthur M. Marcussen
5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read on the Khmer Rouge Atrocity
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2018
Verified Purchase
A gripping story about life before and after the takeover of the communist Khmer Rouge and their brutality. The author survived and escaped under horrible and daunting conditions. So many did not. A truly heartbreaking story.
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Martina A. Nicolls
4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful story-telling
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2013
Stay Alive, My Son is an emotional, yet profound, true account of the authors struggle to stay alive during the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia.

The novel commences in April 1975 with the fall of Phnom Penh, when Khmer Rouge guerrillas moved into Phnom Penh. In three years, more than two million people died and an ancient culture was stripped bare.

The author, Pin Yathay, has a wife and three sons. An engineer with a good education, he was reduced to a labourer in the fields and rice paddies of his district, to join the peasants, the `Ancients'. Moving as the Khmer Rouge dictated, he became one of the `New People,' a deported person in the refugee camps of Cambodia--"a lower and despised order ... no one complained. We were all paralysed by fear of the Khmer Rouge ..." Banished from households was disharmony. Husbands were forbidden to beat wives. Insults were barred. Children were not meant to be scolded. But "tension emerged in other ways" as children were encouraged by the Khmer Rouge to denounce parents whose behaviour fell short of the ideal. "You had to be made of stone, to stay deaf and mute, and blindly obey orders if you wanted to survive."

"It was not long before the dying started. Even in the first week ..." First his youngest son, two years old, dies of fever. A month after the fall of Phnom Penh his oldest son, 9 years old, dies after fainting at work, his leg infected and infested. He plans his escape to Thailand.

Simple in his diction, but powerful in his story-telling, Yathay tells of life, struggle, loss and death, but also of freedom.
One person found this helpful
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danielle r
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth every depressing minute
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2015
Verified Purchase
This book is a challenging, intense read. I couldn't put it down and stayed up into the early morning to finish it. Dark and chilling, Yathy shows us the highs and lows of being human. A must-read.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Anne H.
5.0 out of 5 stars Très émouvant.
Reviewed in France on August 9, 2013
Verified Purchase
J'ai rarement lu un livre qui me touche à ce point.
Une tragédie humaine racontée avec beaucoup de modestie.
Lecture facile. Mériterait d'être plus connu.
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trand
5.0 out of 5 stars a must read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 23, 2010
Verified Purchase
I remember watching the telly and seeing Khmer soldiers marching, it is such a shame that the World stood by and let this happen, I also spent 6mths in Cambodia,doing charity work and visited most of the places in this book,and it was quite haunting and disturbing to actually walk the routes, and places detailed in this book when reading this book,( my first time in Cambodia,) you can actually feel the pain and fear of this man but no-one can ever truely experiance what he actually went through,of all the books I have read about human endurance this is the most compelling, and gripping I will be keeping tabs on this copy as my last one somehow got lost being passed from hand to hand, this is most definatly a must read ...
One person found this helpful
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REALIST
5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightened our information gleaned further.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 27, 2020
Verified Purchase
Bought after holiday in Cambodia and Vuetnam was recommended by our guide. It was a good read and brought back a lot of memories of places we visited. Expanded on what we were told on the Tour.
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Zoé
4.0 out of 5 stars Bon
Reviewed in France on April 9, 2019
Verified Purchase
Bon état, ce à quoi je m’attendais
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Y. Pees
5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgettable
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 7, 2014
Verified Purchase
I could not put the book down, an unforgettable account of family man Pin Yathay, a survivor of the Khymer Rouge regime. Pin Yathay recalls with amazing detail of his life after the Khymer Rouge drove everyone from their homes, jobs and lives in Phnom Penh. Losing his home, children and family in a detailed account of what life was like under the Regime and a true story of one man's amazing survival.
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