About the Author

Bounsang Khamkeo was born in the city of Pakse, in southern Laos, but left his homeland at the age of seventeen to study in France. Thirteen years later, in 1973, he returned to Laos, having recently completed a doctoral degree in political science at the University of Toulouse. Eager to help his country recover from the devastation of the Vietnam War years, he joined the staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he continued to be employed after the communists seized power in December 1975. In 1978 he was assigned to work with Interim Mekong Committee, an inter-governmental organization that focused on the development of water resources and consisted of representatives from Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand, and was subsequently appointed the executive secretary of the Lao National Mekong Committee. He was arrested on the evening of June 1, 1981, at the home of the president of Lao Mekong, after a conflict arose in the course of a business meeting. He was subsequently accused of entirely fictitious crimes and spent the next seven years, three months, and four days as a political prisoner.

In September 1988 the Laotian government chose to release Khamkeo from prison, and he was able to return to his family in Vientiane. His safety was by no means guaranteed, however, and in March 1989 he, his wife, and their two daughters fled Laos. After spending two months in Thailand, they emigrated to the United States, where Khamkeo was reunited with his two sons, who had left Laos prior to his release. Today, he works as a behavioral health counselor at Oregon Health and Science University, in Portland. He lives with his wife, Vieng, in Vancouver, Washington. They have two sons, two daughters, and three grandchildren.


It was after leaving Laos that Bounsang Khamkeo began work on the manuscript that would become I Little Slave. “Deep in my soul,” he writes, “I had come to understand that if someone witnesses a great wrong and fails to speak out, he loses his place as a righteous man. And so I found my reason to survive and the purpose for my existence: to bear witness.”

Contact:

Bounsang Khamkeo
+ 1 (360) 513-9494