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The Girl In The Picture

The Remarkable Story of Vietnam's most Famous Casualty

Denise Chong

On 8 June 1972. nine-year-old Kim Phuc severely burned by napalm ran naked and screaming from her destroyed village and into the eye of history. Her outstretched burnt arms and the scream of pain captured on her lips haunted a generation and helped turn public opinion against the Vietnam War. 

This book is the story of how that photograph came to be. but more importantly what happened to Kim Phuc after it was taken -years of painful rehabilitation and manipulation by a Communist regime before escaping to a new life of freedom in the West. The Girl in the Picture is a spellbinding story of one casualty of war who beat the odds to survive and who also possessed the amazing strength of character to truly forgive those who had inflicted suffering upon her.

'Chong ...sensitively portrays Kim's family's struggle with poverty, and her depictions of the attack and subsequent years of rehabilitation are heart wrenching. Kim's ability to come to terms with her fate and to forgive those who played a hand in it is remarkable. The Girl in the Picture is a fascinating account of the life of an extraordinary human being' TIME OUT

'Not only a fascinating account of everyday life in South Vietnam, but a crisply informative analysis of the social, political and economic structures of Indochina. Chong draws every strand of the story together skillfully and excitingly' THE TIMES