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ABOUT THE BOOK
Forced from his home, teenager Mae Taing struggles to endure years of backbreaking work, constant starvation, and ruthless cruelty from his captors—supposed freedom fighters who turn against their own people. Wrenched from life as he knew it, Mae risks torture and death to escape into the dark tropical jungles, trekking across the relentless wilderness crawling with those Khmer Rouge soldiers.
Although Mae’s depth of determination leads him to overcome unthinkable odds in the hopes of reuniting with his family, bitter fate soon discovers him again. As he finally flees war-torn Cambodia, he becomes trapped in an even more perilous refugee crisis on the ancient temple mountain, Preah Vihear.
Caught up in the terror once more, it is only his willpower to survive and dreams of a better country that give Mae the strength to face the dangers ahead. This beautiful and heart-wrenching memoir, written with Mae’s son, James, is not only an incredible story of survival but demonstrates the human capacity in us all to endure and prevail in spite of great adversity. Under the Naga Tail will undoubtedly find its deserved place among the most epic true stories of human triumph.
MAE BUNSENG TAING
Mae is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. He has been featured in the HAAPI Film Festival award-winning documentary Ghost Mountain, released in 2019. He lives in Connecticut and has run a full-time home painting business for more than thirty years. This is his first book and memoir
MAE BUNSENG TAING
James is the founder of the Preah Vihear Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for preserving the history of refugee rescue in Cambodia and the greater French Indochina region in the 1970s. He began writing Under the Naga Tail while a college student. When not spending his time in the world of refugees, he works in risk and finance in the metro New York area.