Fire from the Mountain, by Omar Cabezas, tells of the early days of what he would call his country's struggle for independence. Cabezas re-creates the atmosphere of the time-the years of the revolution up to 1975-but more important, he gives the reader a truly personal recollection that focuses on the process of becoming a revolutionary, an effective guerrilla fighter. It tells what it meant to him, what it did to him, how it surprised and at times confused him, and how it felt. On the very day that Cabezas was taken into the mountains to begin his training he left his whole world behind. What he found on the mountain and how he survived the adversities of hunger, exposure, a constant and leaden fatigue, fear, and, perhaps the toughest, solitude, are what set this book apart from most other accounts of its kind. Omar Cabezas's book is the story of a young man who left his home, family, and friends to risk his life in the hope of changing the future of his country. He found that to fulfill his dream he had to return to what he had left behind, and when he returned he brought with him the fire from the mountain.