Creator
Pin Yathay
Cambodian engineer and author of the Khmer Rouge survival memoir Stay Alive, My Son.
Pin Yathay is a Cambodian engineer and author whose memoir Stay Alive, My Son (1987) tells of his survival under the Khmer Rouge.[1] The book covers the time from the Khmer Rouge arrival in Phnom Penh in April 1975 to his escape into Thailand in 1977, and it has been translated into twelve languages.[1][2]
Early career
Pin Yathay was born in Oudong, north of Phnom Penh.[1] At Sisowath High School he won Cambodia's mathematics competition, and in the early 1960s a scholarship took him to Polytechnique Montréal in Canada, where he studied civil engineering.[1] Back in Cambodia he became Director of Public Works.[1] Before 1975 he headed the New Works and Equipment Department at the Ministry of Public Works.[3][4]
Under the Khmer Rouge
He was in Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge took the city on April 17, 1975. He spent that night at Ounalom Pagoda, and the next day soldiers ordered the people sheltering there to leave Phnom Penh, saying the Americans would bomb it and they would be gone for only three days.[4][5] He lived for about three months each in Kandal and Takeo provinces, and in about September 1975 he was taken by truck toward Battambang and left at Veal Vong, a forest on the Kravanh Mountains.[5] There people cleared forest and built their own shelters on shrinking rice rations, and about one third of the people in the camp died.[4][5] He survived by trading clothing for food and rice.[5]
His account covers forced labor, famine, deportation and loss. He was deported with eighteen members of his family. Two years later, only he, his wife and their six-year-old son were left.[1][3][2] In 1977 he escaped into Thailand.[2][4] He was held for about a week because he had no passport.[4][3] He reached a refugee camp in Thailand in June 1977.[6] In the camp, journalists interviewed him daily, and he wrote down answers to the questions they asked most so that he would not forget details.[6]
Later career
France granted him asylum on October 13, 1977.[3][4] He then traveled to Paris, Ottawa, Washington and Brussels and gave press conferences about what his family and others suffered under the Khmer Rouge.[3] At a 1978 talk at the École Polytechnique de Montréal, a demonstration was organized against him.[6] He later retired as an engineer and lives in Paris.[3][4]
On February 7, 2013, he testified as a civil party in Case 002/01 against Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan before the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (ECCC).[5][6][3] In its finding that former civil servants and their relatives were screened for class and past jobs, the court relied on his testimony.[5] At the end of his testimony, he called on former Khmer Rouge leaders to examine their actions and apologize to the Cambodian people.[6] He supports the tribunal but has criticized its length, its cost and the small number of accused.[6]
Books
His first book, L'Utopie meurtrière, written in French, was published in December 1979.[6][3] The English book draws on this longer French book and centers more on his family.[3] Stay Alive, My Son was first published in English in 1987, by Free Press in New York and by Bloomsbury.[7][2] Touchstone Books issued it in 1988.[8] Cornell University Press published a new edition in December 2000, with a foreword by David Chandler.[9] Its French edition, Tu vivras, mon fils, first appeared in 2000.[6] The English book was written with the help of the writer John Man.[2]
A Khmer edition followed in 2003.[6]
Virtual reality adaptation
Filmmaker Victoria Bousis found Stay Alive, My Son in a bookstore near Angkor Wat in 2013, and she met Pin Yathay in Paris in 2017 to discuss adapting it.[1] Her company, UME Studios, produced the virtual reality work Stay Alive, My Son, which uses volumetric capture of Pin Yathay and lets players retrace paths from his escape.[1] It won the Producers Guild Innovation Award and has been shown in more than 28 countries.[1] In 2025 it was presented at the Bophana Center in Phnom Penh in a program on Cambodia's story from 1975 to 2025, and a non-VR version was set for global release on April 17, 2025. A permanent installation is planned for the ECCC's resource center.[1]
Works
- Stay Alive, My Son (Book)
See also
References 9
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Cambodianess, Virtual reality brings Pin Yathay's acclaimed memoir to digital life (April 20, 2025)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Kirkus Reviews, Stay Alive, My Son (August 15, 1987)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, trial transcript E1/170.1 (February 7, 2013)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Cambodia Tribunal Monitor, Civil party tells of "unimaginable harm" during Democratic Kampuchea (February 7, 2013)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, witness profile: Pin Yathay
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 Le Petit Journal, Tu vivras mon fils, rencontre avec un survivant du régime khmer rouge (March 10, 2020)
- ↑ Open Library, Stay alive, my son (Free Press, 1987)
- ↑ Open Library, Stay Alive My Son (Touchstone Books, 1988)
- ↑ Open Library, Stay Alive, My Son (Cornell University Press, December 2000)
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