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Biography
Vietnamese-Canadian

Kim Phúc

1963

Vietnamese-Canadian peace activist and author who, as a nine-year-old girl, was captured in Nick Ut's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1972 photograph running naked down a road after a napalm attack during the Vietnam War. The image became one of the most iconic photographs of the twentieth century. Her memoir Fire Road: The Napalm Girl's Journey through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness, and Peace (2017) tells her full story.

Past sales0
PeriodContemporary
NationalityVietnamese-Canadian
1. Biography

A short life of the author

Phan Thị Kim Phúc (born 1963 in Trảng Bàng, South Vietnam) is the subject of one of the most famous photographs in history: Nick Ut’s 1972 image of a naked nine-year-old girl screaming in pain after a South Vietnamese napalm attack on her village. The photograph, published on the front pages of newspapers worldwide, became a defining image of the Vietnam War’s horror and helped turn American public opinion against the conflict.

Phúc suffered severe burns over much of her body and endured years of painful medical treatment. She studied in Cuba, defected to Canada in 1992, and became a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and peace activist.

Fire Road

Fire Road: The Napalm Girl’s Journey through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness, and Peace (2017, Tyndale House) is her memoir — a full account of her life before, during, and after the photograph, including her conversion to Christianity and her path to forgiving those responsible for the attack.

Collecting Phúc

Fire Road (2017, Tyndale House) first editions are common at $15–$30. Signed copies are available from speaking engagements. The book is collected as a document of the Vietnam War’s human cost and as a companion to one of photography’s most important images.