First published 2015
Louis Zamperini floats on a life raft in the Pacific Ocean after his B-24 bomber plunges into the sea on May 27, 1943. For 47 days, he and two fellow survivors battle starvation, thirst, and circling sharks while waiting for rescue. When salvation finally comes, it arrives in the form of Japanese soldiers who drag them not to safety but to imprisonment. Zamperini faces two years as a prisoner of war, enduring torture, beatings, starvation, forced labor, and medical experiments. The American military declares him missing, then officially dead. Yet through each ordeal, Zamperini refuses to surrender his will to live. His story becomes a testament to human resilience when everything seems lost.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, adventure, biography-memoir
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: resilience, survival
Setting: Pacific Ocean, Japan
Period: 1943
384 pages · Hardcover · Newton Compton
Content warnings: torture, violence