Unbroken A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Louis Zamperini was a wayward boy who channeled his recklessness into running, becoming an Olympic distance runner who competed in the 1936 Berlin Games. When World War II came, he became an airman in the Pacific — and in 1943 his bomber crashed into the ocean, leaving him adrift on a raft with two crewmates, sharks circling, for forty-seven days.

Survival at sea was only the beginning. Zamperini was captured by the Japanese and spent more than two years in a series of brutal POW camps, singled out for punishment by a sadistic guard. Laura Hillenbrand reconstructs his ordeal in unflinching detail, and follows him home to the long, difficult work of recovering from what he endured.

Unbroken is a meticulously researched work of narrative nonfiction — a story of resilience, dignity, and redemption that became one of the most acclaimed true survival accounts of its era.