Mission to Tehran

When the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975, May was employed as a pressman for Western journalists. During the bloodbath phase of the new regime, he managed to pass himself off as a simple farmer, witnessed innumerable examples of the institutional violence of the Khmer Rouge, and lost his father and five siblings in the slaughter. After the Vietnamese invasion in 1979, May supported himself in a refugee camp by smuggling. British journalist James Fenton (who writes the introduction) helped him escape to England, where he now lives. His book, in addition to being a highly suspenseful survival story, is valuable for two reasons: it richly conveys a sense of traditional Cambodian culture and outlook; and it provides a detailed daily look at the nightmarish life under the Khmer Rouge during a time when, as May puts it, ""the whole society was working at maximumand brutally enforcedinefficiency.'' (January)