Alive tells the story of an Uruguayan rugby team (who were alumni of Stella Maris College), and their friends and family who were involved in the airplane crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. The plane crashed into the Andes mountains on Friday 13 October 1972. Of the 45 people on the flight, only 16 survived 72 days of sub-zero temperatures.
The search went on for eight days, although bad weather prevented searching for two days. The survivors found little food in the crashed fuselage, and it became necessary for the survivors to eat the frozen bodies of their dead friends.
The book was published two years after the survivors were rescued. The author interviewed many of the survivors as well as the family members of the passengers. He wanted to write the story as it had happened without embellishment. The author wrote:
I was given a free hand in writing this book by both the publisher and the sixteen survivors. At times I was tempted to fictionalize certain parts of the story because this might have added to their dramatic impact but in the end I decided that the bare facts were sufficient to sustain the narrative...when I returned in October 1973 to show them the manuscript of this book, some of them were disappointed by my presentation of their story. They felt that the faith and friendship which inspired them in the cordillera do not emerge from these pages. It was never my intention to underestimate these qualities, but perhaps it would be beyond the skill of any writer to express their own appreciation of what they lived through.[1]
