In October 1972 an aircraft carrying a party of Uruguayan rugby players and their friends took off from Argentina to fly over the Andes to Chile. It crashed in the mountains in dense cloud, and some of the 45 passengers were killed. The survivors soon realized, by listening to their transistor radio, that the search party had been called off because nobody could be expected to survive at that altitude in so savage a climate. As the days passed, weakened by starvation and sub-zero temperatures, they had to face the inescapable truth - that, in order to survive, they must eat the flesh of their dead companions. How these young men finally sent out expeditionaries to brave the Andean peaks and how, after appalling hardships, they achieved rescue and returned to civilization 72 days after the crash, is recounted in this tale of human courage and triumph. The author is a novelist whose books include The Free Frenchman and On the Third Day.