Chan Samoeun was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 1951, in a poor family. He grew up and lived in Phnom Penh until the city was captured by the Khmer Rouge in 1975 and his whole family was expelled. Under the Khmer Rouge regime, he lost everyone in his family except for one brother. Afterward, he took refuge in a village in northern Cambodia for a year, during which time he penned the original manuscript that would become Prisoners of Class. Then he made his way alone back to Phnom Penh, where he eventually earned a degree in civil engineering. He fulfilled a career in the Cambodian civil service under a professional pseudonym, Oum Sambath, as an engineer in the ministries of agriculture, environment, planning, and rural development. He published Prisoners of Class for the first time in 1999 under the name Oum Sambath. He is now retired and living in Phnom Penh. He has a wife and three children.