Against All Hope: The Prison Memoirs of Armando Valladares

Summary

This is a history of the Cuban revolution viewed from its dungeons. Armando Valladares describes his twenty-two years of torment and triumph in Castro’s prison. Arrested at the age of twenty-two for being philosophically opposed to Communism, he gives a dramatic and harrowing account of the regular beatings, the hunger, the humiliation, and the psychological “experimentation” to which the Cuban Revolution subjected its unrepentant enemies. However, Valladares’ hope and courage transcended these horrors, showing us the heroic possibilities of one possessing unshaken faith.

More than an indictment of a cruel regime, this book is a testimony to the power of biblical faith to allow a man to survive against all hope.