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Late 1980s. Maximum security prison in Canto Grande, Lima province, Peru, and a group of revolutionary activists from the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). This is the backdrop to this thrilling story which traces the escape of Víctor Polay, founder of the MRTA, and some fifty guerrillas. The author paints the portrait of those who risked their lives to dig a tunnel of more than three hundred meters under the prison in order to free their comrades. Caricatures of revolutionaries are avoided: no bloodthirsty terrorists or idealized romantics, but rather militants sometimes slipping into sacrificial engagement and ultimately subjected to the violence of a torturing state. This story also sheds light on the astonishing victory of the conservative Alberto Fujimori in the presidential election of June 1990, which inaugurates a new phase of repression and will bring the leader of the MRTA back behind bars. Sentenced to thirty-two years in prison in 2006 (a sentence increased by three more years in 2008), Polay is still serving his sentence.
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