Hugo Blanco's vivid and direct prose takes the reader on an
inspirational journey to the heart of Peru, looking for a respectful
relationship with Pacamama (Mother Earth) and with its indigenous
communities and their struggles for land reform and change in the 1950s
and 1960s. These pages, written in bursts, disorderly, jubilant and
desperate, tell of the adventures and misfortunes of the man who headed
the campesino struggle in Peru, the organizer of the rural trade unions,
the man who pushed for an agrarian reform born from below. The
authorities accused him of being a terrorist. He slept under the stars
and in cells occupied by rats. He went on 14 hunger strikes. During one
of them, the Minister of the Interior made a kind gesture and sent him a
coffin as a gift. More than once, the district attorney demanded the
death penalty, and more than once the news was published that Hugo had
died. He continues to be that smart, crazy man who decided to be an
Indian, even though he was not, and turned out to be the most Indian of
all.