The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey Around South America

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Verso, 1995 - 156 pages
In January 1952, two young men from Buenos Aires set out to explore South America on an ancient Norton motorbike. The journey would last six months and would take them thousands of miles, all the way up from Argentina to Venezuela. En route there would be disasters and discoveries, high drama, low comedy, fights, parties and a lot of serious drinking. They would meet an extraordinary range of people: native Indians and copper miners, lepers, police, wanderers and tourists. They would become stowaways, firemen and football coaches; they would join in a strike. They would sometimes fall in love, and frequently fall off the motorbike. Both of them kept diaries. One of them was a tall and good-looking medical student called Ernesto Guevara de la Serna. Using the standard Argentinean nickname, others would sometimes refer to the two companions as Big Che and Little Che. In Ernesto's case, the nickname stuck. Within a decade the whole world would know Che Guevara. This is the story of that remarkable journey, eight years before the Cuban revolution, in Che's own words, and illustrated with rare contemporary photographs. For Che it was a formative experience, and amidst the humour and pathos of the tale, there are moving examples of his idealism and his solidarity with the poor and oppressed. But it is far from being the diary of a militant and sometimes very far from being 'politically correct', which may be the reason that the manuscript has only been made available now, a quarter century after Che's death in the Bolivian jungle. Instead it is a vivid record kept by an exuberant, intelligent and acutely observant 23-year-old, describing what might have been the adventure of a lifetime - had his lifetime not turned into a much greater adventure.

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À propos de l'auteur (1995)

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was born in Rosario, Argentina on June 14, 1928, to an aristocratic family of Spanish-Irish descent. He was known from an early age for his dynamic personality and radical points of view. Guevara graduated from the University of Buenos Aires with a degree of doctor of medicine and surgery in 1953. He witnessed the 1954 CIA-backed coup in Guatemala that ended the regime of socialist Jacobo Arbenz. As a direct result, Guevara became convinced that the United States would never support leftist governments and that violent revolution was the only way to end poverty in Latin America. He joined Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement in 1956, and following the Cuban Revolution held several influential posts in the new socialist government, including Minister of Industries. In 1965, Che left Cuba for the ex-Belgian Congo to support the Marxist Simba movement, which was ultimately unsuccessful. Following his time in Africa, Guevara traveled to Bolivia to teach guerrilla warfare to native Communists preparing for revolution. He was captured during a military operation by army forces supported by the United States and executed on October 9, 1967. Guevara's remains were discovered in 1997 and relocated to a mausoleum in Cuba. Guevara had a daughter with Hilda Gadea, whom he married in 1955 and divorced in 1959, and four children with his second wife, Aleida March, a Cuban-born member of the 26th of July movement. He also had a son with Lilia Rosa López. After his death Guevara became a global icon of martyrdom and a symbol of rebellion, particularly during the worldwide student protests of the late 1960s. Among his most noted written works, which include texts on guerilla warfare, socialism, and political economy, are "The Motorcycle Diaries," "Bolivian Diary," and "Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War."

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