The Death and Life of Dith Pran

On April 17, 1975, an entire nation vanished. On that day, Khmer Rouge troops entered the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh proclaiming "the Year Zero," and within hours began emptying the city of its two and a half million inhabitants. Sydney H. Schanberg, a New York Times correspondent, and his Cambodian assistant, Dith Pran, stayed to witness the city's fall. Schanberg was eventually granted safe conduct across the border, but Pran was forced into the Cambodian countryside, which would become a death camp for millions. His failure to keep Dith Pran safe haunted Schaunberg for more than four years until, in October 1979, Dith Pran crossed the border to Thailand and to freedom. This is the harrowing account of the final days before the fall of Phnom Penh and of life under the Khmer Rouge, seen through the eyes of two men who shared a unique commitment to each other, to Cambodia, and to history.