"First Blood" is a complex narrative space in which biographical literature intertwines with the novel, pure realism with the creative fabrication. Patrick Nothomb, the Belgian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is captured by an armed group in 1964. While in captivity, he recalls his entire life and reconsiders everything, from himself and his origins to his surroundings and those around him at the present moment. Through reviewing the biography of this public figure, the author explores a period of history with all its political, social, and cultural aspects, and its psychological and emotional repercussions on a man everyone knew as a captive ambassador, and whom she knew for countless other qualities because, quite simply, he was her father.