The Girl in the Picture

 The photograph of a naked little girl running down a road is one of the most iconic images of the Vietnam War. Taken by Nick Ut, it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972.
The girl in the picture is Kim Phuc, and The Girl in the Picture by Denise Chong tells her life story against the backdrop of modern Vietnamese history.

Kim Phuc’s village was mistakenly bombed with napalm by the South Vietnamese air force under the direction of American military advisers. She suffered severe burns across her back. Nick Ut and other Western journalists rushed her to a hospital in Saigon, where her life was barely saved.

After the war, the government used her as a propaganda symbol against American imperialism. Yet she dreamed of becoming a doctor so she could help people who suffered as she had. She also secretly held a Christian faith.

Because Prime Minister Pham Van Dong cared for her like a granddaughter, she was allowed to study in Havana. In 1992, she married a fellow Vietnamese student, and during their honeymoon in Moscow, she and her reluctant husband sought political asylum in Canada.

In 1996, after Kim Phuc delivered a speech on Veterans Day in Washington, D.C., a man who believed he had been responsible for the napalm attack approached her to apologize. She told him, “It’s okay. I forgive. I forgive.”
I couldn’t hold back my tears at that part of the book.

Today, she lives in Canada with her husband, their two sons, and her parents. She has also established a foundation to support child victims of war and serves as a goodwill ambassador for UNESCO.


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