Feeling as though 'they are living inside a Bible parable,' the men keep their hopes up through prayer, and some gravitate toward particular roles: the pastor, the chronicler, the unofficial spokesman. Particularly moving is the reenactment of the first 17 days when the '33' banded together, drinking dirty water used to cool off the mine's drilling systems and sharing their meager food supplies. Noting that the abundance of minerals under the hills of the Atacama desert drew workers from all corners of Chile, Tobar who was granted exclusive access to the miners and their families compassionately recounts the miners' personal histories, experiences during the 17 days they were without outside contact, extended rescue, and the drama above ground with the families living near the mine in their makeshift 'Camp Esperanza,' mingling with government ministers, NASA advisors, engineers, mechanics, and drillers.

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and novelist Tobar (The Barbarian Nurseries) presents the riveting story of the 33 men who spent 69 days trapped more than 2,000 feet underground in Chile's San Jos Mine in 2010. Selected for NPR's Morning Edition Book Club A masterwork of narrative journalism and a stirring testament to the power of the human spirit, The 33: Deep Down Dark captures the profound ways in which the lives of everyone involved in the catastrophe were forever changed.Ī Finalist for a National Book Critics Circle AwardĪ Finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book PrizeĪ New York Times Book Review Notable Book

We learn what it was like to be imprisoned inside a mountain, understand the horror of being slowly consumed by hunger, and experience the awe of working in such a place-underground passages filled with danger and that often felt alive. After the disaster, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Héctor Tobar received exclusive access to the miners and their tales, and in Deep Down Dark, he brings them to haunting, visceral life. When the San José mine collapsed outside of Copiapó, Chile, in August 2010, it trapped thirty-three miners beneath thousands of feet of rock for a record-breaking sixty-nine days.

Deep Down Dark is the novel that inspired the film The 33 starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Cote de Pablo and Antonio Banderas.

Deep down dark by héctor tobar