"If [Lurgio] Gavilán Sánchez’s autobiography had not been written with such austerity and modesty, the atrocities to which he was witness and perhaps complicit, would not be believable. . . . On every page, this book betrays a sensitive spirit, who did not lose his reason even in those moments of extreme political exaltation. Nor did he stop questioning what he was doing and lose himself to a destructive passion. In him, there is always a sense of a personal rejection of the suffering of others, of the murderers, the reprisals, the executions and tortures, and, in moments, an overpowering sadness that threatens to destroy him. . . . It is a miracle that Lurgio Gavilán Sánchez survived this perilous adventure. But perhaps it is even more remarkable that, after all of the horror he lived for so many years, he has managed to emerge pure of heart, without the dark cloud of bitterness, and has been able to give such persuasive and lucid testimony of a period that even today awakes great passions in Peru."—Mario Vargas Llosa, El Pais (Madrid)