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The Motorcycle Diaries

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The Motorcycle Diaries, originally marketed by Verso as "Das Kapital meets Easy Rider" [1], traces the early travels of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, then a 23-year-old medical student, and his friend Alberto Granado, a 29-year-old biochemist. Guevara travelled 8,000 miles across South America on an old motorcyle. During the journey he is transformed by witnessing the social injustices of exploited mine workers, persecuted communists, ostracized lepers, and the tattered descendants of a once-great Incan civilization. The book ends with a declaration by Guevara, originally born into an upper middle class family, displaying his willingness to fight and die for the cause of the poor, and his dream of seeing a united Latin America. It has been a New York Times bestseller several times[2].

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[edit] Background

Guevara and Granado leave Buenos Aires ( Argentina) in January 1952 on the back of a sputtering 1939 Norton 500, dubbed La Poderosa - "The Mighty One", (A carbureted version of Don Quixote's Rocinante).[3] They desired to explore the South America they only knew from books. By journey's end (by motorcycle, steamship, raft, horse, bus, and hitchhiking) they traveled for a symbolic nine months, covering more than 8,000 miles across places such as the Andes, Atacama Desert, and the Amazon River Basin. In the bestselling memoir, Guevara details his adventure, as well as his observations on the life of the impoverished indigenous peasantry throughout Latin America.

[edit] Transformation

Historians and biographers now agree that the experience had a profound impact on Guevara, who later became one of the most famous guerrilla leaders in history. "His political and social awakening has very much to do with this face-to-face contact with poverty, exploitation, illness, and suffering", said Carlos M. Vilas, a history professor at the Universidad Nacional de Lanús in Buenos Aires, Argentina.[4]

In May 2005, Alberto Granado described their journey to the BBC, stating: "The most important thing was to realise that we had a common sensibility for the things that were wrong and unjust." According to Granado, their time at the leper colony of Sao Paulo in the Amazon also proved pivotal. Recalling that they shared everything with the sick people| lepers|sick people and describing Guevara's wave on departure as follows: "I got the impression that Che was saying goodbye to institutional medicine and becoming a doctor of the people."[5]

According to his daughter Aleida Guevara on a 2004 article, throughout the book we can see how Guevara became aware that what poor people needed was not his scientific knowledge as a doctor, but his strength and persistence to bring social change.[6].

[edit] Editions

Che Guevara's daughter Aleida Guevara explains that Che didn't intend his diary to be published, and had remained as "a sheaf of typewritten pages". Since the 1980's Che's family has been working on his unpublished manuscripts, and a Cuban publishing house published "The Motorcycle Diaries" for the first time in 1993[6].

The director of Ocean Press assures that the book has in fact been published in Cuba and that any rumors of a conspiracy to prohibit its editon in Cuba are false. He explains that the book has an edition by publishing house of the Union of Young Communists, and will also be published by the Che Guevara Studies Center. He also assures that its publication has the support of many people including Fidel Castro.[7].

"The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey" was published by Ocean Press and the Che Guevara Studies Center, Havana in 2003. The book has a preface by Aleida Guevara March, edited by Julie Wark, and an introduction by Cintio Vitier. This edition is edited and translated by Alexandra Keeble.

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Film

  • Chasing Che, 2007, developed by National Geographic Adventure, A ten-week series featured on V-me.
  • Travelling with Che Guevara, 2004, directed by Gianni Mina, Documentary, (110 min).

[edit] References

  1. ^ Doreen Carvajal (1997-04-30). Years After His Death, Che Guevara Has New Charisma 30 Years After His Death, Che Guevara Has New Charisma. Retrieved on 2008-04-08.
  2. ^ NYT bestseller list: #38 Paperback Nonfiction on 2005-02-20, #9 Nonfiction on 2004-10-07 and on more occasions.
  3. ^ On the Trail of the Young Che Guevara by Rachel Dodes, The New York Times, December 19 2004
  4. ^ "'Motorcycle Diaries' Shows Che Guevara at Crossroads", October 14 2004, Natl Geographic
  5. ^ "My best friend Che", May 9, 2005, by Alberto Granado, BBC
  6. ^ a b Aleida Guevara (2008-10-09). Riding My Father's Motorcycle. Retrieved on 2008-04-08.
  7. ^ David Deutschmann, Publisher and President, Ocean Press) (2008-06-02). Guevara's Diaries (letter to the editor). New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-04-08.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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