When this novel was published in 1949, it was the subject of passionate criticism and controversy. In it, the already well-known author of God on Earth and The Walls of Water raised the themes of class struggle with an introspective vision that, while remaining faithful to his Marxist activism, challenged the dogma of the "positive character" by presenting characters with inner lives that debated the contradictions of the human condition. Faced with the confusion and misinterpretation surrounding the book, Revueltas chose to withdraw it from circulation and stopped publishing narrative literature for seven years, during which time he devoted himself to reflecting on the ideological problems in the relationship between art and politics. Today the novel appears intensely alive, thanks not only to that tragic vision that Revueltas incarnates in his characters, but also to a style in which words form a web of tensions where lucidity emerges from the clash between chaotic, adverse reality and the committed human will, determined to acquire a form, a value of sign and destiny.