A Revolutionary Sandinista

Omar Cabezas, in Fire From the Mountain, portrays his own coming of age as a member of the revolutionary Sandinistas in Nicaragua. The book is essentially an effort to show the human side of an evolving Sandinista, to humanize the hazy and frightening image of the Nicaraguan revolutionary which is posited by enemies of the Sandinista revolution. The book is also meant to offer a non-romantic portrait of the same group, countering the image presented by those who would paint revolution as an entirely glorious and endlessly inspiring adventure.

Cabezas tells us offhandedly --- in the immediate aftermath of a description of a popular pool hall in the author's hometown of Leon --- that "I remember it was during Holy Week that I joined Frente Sandinista, right after I graduated from high school" (p. 15). The reader is unprepared for such information, and that is precisely what the author intends. He does not try to present his joining up with the revolutionaries as a well-thought-out and ideologically-based move, but rather as a step taken by a young man not entirely certain of what he is doing. After all, the author is taking us on a journey of discovery. He was, indeed, uncertain, and he wants to make that clear from the beginning. If he had known what he was getting into from the beginning, if he had been prepared, if he was fully and forever committed to the cause when he first joined, the story would not be the compelling coming-of-age tale which it is, nor would it

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ng the enemy always on your track; it's not going around filthy and stinking, or being constantly wet. It's the loneliness. Nothing is as rough as the loneliness" (p. 83). The author's style is crisp and full of detail and humor and pain, but finally it is his profound honesty in presenting the reality of the revolutionary experience --- with all its disillusionment, all its grit --- which draws the reader more and more deeply into his narrative. The reader will find it extremely difficult to accept the view of the United States Government that the Sandinistas were a group of Moscow-inspired cutthroats after having read this open-hearted book. At every turn, the author turns his back on the opportunity to paint the Sandinistas as some sort of aggressive saints, choosing instead at every turn to show their humanity: "The other family was made up of the wife, the husband, who was an old revolutionary, an old Sandinista from the early days, and two or three daughters. He bet on cockfights." At the same time, he keeps the reader's mind focused on the injustices and brutality the revolutionaries are fighting against, as in this passage from the same page as the quotation above: "A very heroic woman I have fond memories of her .

Category: Foreign - A