The Long Walk
The True Story of a Trek to Freedom
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4.8 • 41 Ratings
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
'I hope The Long Walk will remain as a memorial to all those who live and die for freedom, and for all those who for many reasons could not speak for themselves'
Slavomir Rawicz
Slavomir Rawicz was a young Polish cavalry officer. On 19 November 1939 he was arrested by the Russians and after brutal interrogation he was sentenced to twenty-five years in a gulag.
After a three-month journey in the dead of winter to Siberia, life in a Soviet labour camp meant enduring hunger, extreme cold, untreated wounds and illnesses and facing the daily risk of arbitrary execution. Realising that to remain meant almost certain death, Rawicz, along with six companions, escaped. In June 1941, they crossed the trans-Siberian railway and headed south, climbing into Tibet and freedom in British India nine months later, in March 1942, having travelled over four thousand miles on foot through some of the harshest regions in the world, including the Gobi Desert, Tibet and the Himalayas.
First published in 1956, this is one of the greatest true stories of escape, adventure and survival against all odds.
In 2010, a film, The Way Back, based on the book, directed by six-time Academy Award-nominee Peter Weir (Master and Commander, The Truman Show, and The Dead Poets Society) was released. It starred Colin Farrell, Jim Sturgess and Ed Harris.
Customer Reviews
The ultimate survival story
An incredible story of endurance, hardship and survival. This book made me think about what humans are capable of doing to each other and what they are capable of going through and coming out the other end of.
The Long Walk
Astonishing read!
What an amazing group and gentlemen.
A must read!
The Long Walk
I first read this book as a sixteen year old I can't remember where I got the book from.Having starter end to read it I couldn't put it down until I had finished it. a truly inspirational of despair and hope. Some forty years later this book was advertised in my later paper in Nottingham, I sent for a copy and having read a second time it had lost none of that inspiration. I also found out thE the writer lived in one if the suburds of Nottingham moving here after the Second World War. A truly Homeric read of adversity and triumph I recommend this book to any age.