Young Sichan Siv was targeted by the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian genocide because he was a university graduate. His mother told him to run and "never give up hope!" Captured and put to work in a slave labor camp, Siv knew it was only a matter of time before he would be worked to death--or killed outright. After a daring escape and a desperate run for freedom through the jungle, Siv finally came upon a farmer who said, "Welcome to Thailand." He spent months teaching English in a refugee camp while regaining his strength, and was eventually allowed entry into the United States, where he kept striving. Eventually rising to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Siv returned with deep emotion to the killing fields of Cambodia in 1992 as a senior representative of the U.S. government.--From publisher description.