Khun Srun (Khmer: ឃុន ស្រ៊ុន, 1945–1978) was an important Cambodian writer. He was born in Char village (ភូមិចារ), Rorvieng sub-district (ឃុំរវៀង), Samrong district (ស្រុកសំរោង), Takéo province, into a poor Hakka Chinese Cambodian family. When he was eight, his father, Khun Kim Chheng, a Hakka Chinese man who had fled Communism, died, and he and his six siblings were raised by his Hakka mother, Chi Eng, a small shopkeeper and a devout Buddhist. He began his schooling during the country's first years of independence, when the doors to higher education and professionalization were inching open to all Cambodians, regardless of their social and economic class. A brilliant student, he studied Khmer literature and psychology at the university in Phnom Penh, becoming widely read in sciences, math