After the military coup in Chile in 1973, Jorge Montealegre was imprisoned with thousands of other persecuted people in the national stadium in Santiago and later in the Chacabuco concentration camp in the Atacama Desert. He was 19 years old. In captivity he overcame pain and torture and discovered his literary calling. From then on he never stopped writing and with this book he gave a personal as well as universal testimony. In exile he published his testimony as a prisoner in the Chacabuco concentration camp in the Atacama Desert in 1974. In 1979 Jorge Montealegre returned to Chile for good.