Denise Chong

The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War

The Girl in the Picture

The Concubine's Children [sound Recording] : Portrait of a Family Divided

From the bestselling author of The Concubine’s Children and The Girl in the Picture , a political, social and cultural portrait of domestic abuse in times of cultural turmoil, and the Bangladeshi woman whose irrepressible spirit found light in sudden darkness.

From the outside, Rumana seemed an unlikely victim of domestic well educated, married to a man of her own choosing, and progressing in her career as a professor of international relations at Dhaka University. But in 2011, on return from graduate studies at the University of British Columbia, her husband attacked and blinded her in front of their young daughter. As Rumana's horrifying story garnered international headlines, and connections brought her to Vancouver in an attempt—ultimately futile—to restore her sight, her plight underscored the fact that there are no typical victims of intimate-partner violence.
Denise Chong goes behind the headlines to reveal the devolution of a love story into a tale of tyranny behind closed doors, and the pursuit of justice that proved all the more elusive during the rise of social media. Out of Darkness tells a globe-spanning narrative of loyalty, perseverance and a woman’s determination to face the future and rebuild a life with meaning.

Rumana Monzur's Journey Through Betrayal, Tyranny and Abuse

Out of Darkness

From friendship to passion, from childhood to motherhood, from secrets to jealousies, the stories in this collection cover a vast social, cultural and emotional terrain while revealing the many common touchstones in the lives of contemporary women.

The Penguin Anthology of Stories by Canadian Women

The Kim Phuc Story

By the author of the award-winning memoir The Concubine’s Children. On June 8, 1972, a nine-year-old girl, severely burned by napalm, ran from a misplaced air strike over her village in South Vietnam and into the eye of history. Her photograph—one of the most unforgettable images of the war and of the twentieth century—was seen around the world. The Girl in the Picture is at once a riveting personal story about Kim Phuc, a victim of war and later, under the Communist regime, a tool of propaganda, and a groundbreaking social history that offers a rare view of everyday life in Vietnam both during and after the war.

Girl in the Picture

The eagerly-awaited new book by Denise Chong, author of the award-winning, national bestseller, The Concubine’s Children. In her first book in a decade, beloved author Denise Chong, tells the story of a man who humiliated a repressive regime in front of the entire world, and whose daring gesture informs our view of human rights to this day. Despite his family’s impeccable Communist roots, Lu Decheng, a small town bus mechanic, grew up intuiting all that was wrong with Mao’s China. As a young man he believes truth and decency mattered, only to learn that preserving the Chairman’s legacy mattered more. Lu’s story reads like Shakespearean drama, peppered with defiance, love and betrayal. His steadfast refusal to acquiesce comes to a head, but not an end, with his infamous defacing of Mao’s portrait during the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square.

The Story of an Ordinary Man Who Defaced an Icon and Unmasked a Dictatorship

Egg on Mao

"Carefully balancing cool observation and compassion, Chong writes extraordinary history and gives voice to the Chinese immigrant experience."--ALA Booklist.

Portrait of a Family Divided

The Concubine's Children

Every day throughout his young life, Lu Decheng is reminded of the bullying and submission that are Mao's legacy. Inspired by the growing student protest in Tiananmen Square, Decheng, at 25 years of age, travels to Beijing, believing that this may be the only chance in his lifetime for the Chinese people to embrace democracy, to reclaim dignity and decency in their lives. In an epic tale that takes the reader back to before the revolution through a heart-rending love story to Decheng's release after nine years in prison, Egg On Mao paints a portrait of stunning depth.

A Story of Love, Hope and Defiance

On June 8, 1972, nine-year-old Kim Phuc, severely burned by napalm, ran from her blazing village in South Vietnam and into the eye of history. Her photograph-one of the most unforgettable images of the twentieth century-was seen around the world and helped turn public opinion against the Vietnam War. This book is the story of how that photograph came to be-and the story of what happened to that girl after the camera shutter closed. Award-winning biographer Denise Chong's portrait of Kim Phuc-who eventually defected to Canada and is now a UNESCO spokesperson-is a rare look at the Vietnam War from the Vietnamese point-of-view and one of the only books to describe everyday life in the wake of this war and to probe its lingering effects on all its participants.

Denise Chong

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