Pran was born in Siem Reap, Cambodia near Angkor Wat. He learned French in in school, and taught himself English. 1975, Pran and New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg stayed behind in Cambodia to cover the fall of the capital Phnom Penh to the Communist Khmer Rouge. Schanberg and other reporters were able to leave the country but Pran was not. He was later taken in by the Khmer Rouge to the Killing Fields. He was forced to hide the fact that he was educated or he would be slaughtered. He endured four years of starvation and forced labor. He escaped by traveling 40 miles to Siem Reap. This is where he coined the term the “Killing fields”—because of all the corpses he encountered on his journey.  The Khmer Rouge was overthrown in 1978. In 1980 he worked as a photojournalist for the New York Times. After being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he died in 2008 in New Jersey.