Memoirs of a Cambodian survivor

DONNA-LEE BIDDLE

Last updated 23:04, May 18 2015

Christel Yardley

Pisey Leng has released a memoir about surviving the Khmer Rouge. Her book, The Wisdom Seeker, will launch on Monday night.

Raglan woman Pisey Leng has penned a first-hand account of surviving the Khmer Rouge.

Her book, The Wisdom Seeker, was launched today through her website The Wisdom Seeker.

The Cambodian-born mother owns Raglan Bakery with her husband and moved to New Zealand as a 21-year-old.

"The book is about my life and surviving it and the message is that there is hope," she said.

"A lot of my family members died, my father was executed, my aunties, uncles, cousins - all of them died."

Leng was seven when the Khmer Rouge was in power.

"I was taken to the camp with my family and only my mother and brother survived," she said.

"After four years in the camp, we were liberated but then we were with the Vietnamese government.

"I had to escape to a refugee camp and it was another four years of a really bad life and in a way it was worse than the Khmer Rouge."

Leng moved to New Zealand with her mother and brother and said what should have been a happy time, turned out to be the opposite. "I was struggling when I came to New Zealand with my family to start a new life," she said. "There was so much control in the labour camps, everything was decided so it was a shock that I needed to make my own decisions because I had never done it before." The 47-year-old started writing the book two years ago and was inspired to do so when a close friend died. "A close friend of mine committed suicide [because he thought] he had no reason to live," Leng said. "The hardship that I have been through and how I turned it around, I want to share that with people. "I want to inspire someone to keep going that little longer, to read my book and overcome adversity." Olympian Rob Hamill's brother Kerry Hamill was killed during the Khmer Rouge. He was called to testify against the first Khmer Rouge defendant charged with crimes against humanity, Comrade Duch, the commander who ran Tuol Sleng prison and met Leng through a friend of his. "Pisey is an amazing person and I hope people buy the book because it really is a compelling story," he said. "It's not only written for her but for all the Cambodian people." Hamill wrote the foreword for Leng's book, reflecting on his and his family's personal trials. "Pisey hugged me and then took me aside to a table at the rear of the café where we talked about the Khmer Rouge, the atrocities, and the effects it all had on both our families," he wrote. "We held hands across the table, and together we wept." - Waikato Times