Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
"Killing Fields" Photojournalist Dith Pran Dies at 65
By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 30, 2008
Modified Mar 30, 2008
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 30, 2008
Modified Mar 30, 2008
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Dith Pran, the New York Times photographer whose survival of Cambodia's "killing fields" was turned into a movie, died at age 65 in NJ. Dith had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in recent years.
The NY Times obituary details how Dith "scraped and scrambled to survive the barbarous revolutionary regime of the Khmer Rouge" in the 1970s. Dith worked as a translator with then-NY Times reporter Sydney Shanberg and taught himself how to take photographs. Shanberg credited Dith with saving his and two other journalists' lives.
Though Shanberg helped evacuate Pran's wife and children from Cambodia, he "could not keep Mr. Dith from being sent to the countryside to join millions working as virtual slaves." From the Times:
When the Khmer Rouge won control in 1975, Mr. Dith became part of a monstrous social experiment: the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people from the cities and the suppression of the educated classes with the goal of recreating Cambodia as an agricultural nation.
To avoid summary execution, Mr. Dith hid that he was educated or that he knew Americans. He passed himself off as a taxi driver. He even threw away his money and dressed as a peasant.
Over the next 4 ½ years, he worked in the fields and at menial jobs. For sustenance, people ate insects and rats and even the exhumed corpses of the recently executed, he said.
After escaping to Thailand in 1979, Dith became a photographer for the NY Times and became a U.S. citizen in 1986. He also started the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, to educate people about the Cambodian genocide.
The Times has a slideshow about Dith and his work in Cambodia and here in NY and NJ. There's also a Times video of Dith, as well as a video of a Charlie Rose interview with Shanberg and Dith about the trial of Pol Pot. And just a week and a half ago, the Star-Ledger interviewed him, and he urged people to test themselves for cancer, "I hope people learn from me and insist that your doctor test for cancer. Do it every six months...I am not afraid to die, but I hate to see a life wasted."
In 1980, Shanberg (who was award a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in Cambodia 1976 and insisted he share it with Dith) wrote the NY Times magazine article, "The Death and Life of Dith Pran," which became the basis for the 1984 film The Killing Fields. Haing S. Ngor won an Oscar for portraying Dith; like Dith, Ngor was a professional (a doctor) who was captured by the Khmer Rouge and sent to the killing fields.
Tagged
cambodia
Dith Pran
genocide
ny times
photographer
Pol Pot
Sydney Shanberg
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Early Addition: There's a new hot duck, this time in Queens
Because a mandarin duck has been frolicking in Flushing, here are your early links: RHONY star racked up a lot of parking tickets, 57 best Italian restaurants in New Jersey, Judi Dench said the "Cats" movie was bad and more.
By
James Ramsay
Published Oct 20, 2026 at 9:40 a.m. ET
NYPD hate crime unit investigates smashed windows, ‘Pal Action’ graffiti at UES Capital One
The bank previously faced protests over a $90 million loan to an Israeli drone company.
By
Ryan Kost
News
NYPD hate crime unit investigates smashed windows, ‘Pal Action’ graffiti at UES Capital One
The bank previously faced protests over a $90 million loan to an Israeli drone company.
By
Ryan Kost
A reliably Republican part of NJ, until ICE came to town
By
Mike Hayes
NYC school integration debate exposes tensions between Black parents and Mamdani
By
Elizabeth Kim
Queens man charged with hate crime at Jewish-owned bagel shop displaying Israeli flags
By
Giulia Heyward
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .