The Motorcycle Diaries
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3.0 • 3 Ratings
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
'A Latin American James Dean or Jack Kerouac' Washington Post
'It's true; Marxists just wanna have fun... a revolutionary bestseller' Guardian
At the age of twenty-three, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado set out from their native Argentina to explore their continent, with only a single 1939 Norton motorcycle to carry them, nicknamed La Poderosa ('the powerful one').
They travelled not to visit the usual tourist attractions, but to meet ordinary people and understand Latin American life. In amidst the tales of youthful adventures - of women, wine, thrilling escapes and the power of friendship - the young Che also learns first-hand about poverty, philosophy and philosophy and forms himself into the man who would become the world's most famous and admired revolutionary and freedom fighter.
'For every comic escapade of the carefree roustabout there is an equally eye-opening moment in the development of the future revolutionary leader. By the end of the journey, a politicized Guevara has emerged to predict his own legendary future' Time
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Argentine revolutionary Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara became Fidel Castro's chief lieutenant in the Cuban revolution, Cuba's minister for industry and later a guerrilla in Bolivia, where he was captured and executed in 1967. This high-spirited travel diary of Guevara's eight-month motorcycle journey across Argentina, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela as a 23-year-old medical student in 1951-52 mixes lyrical observation, youthful adventure and anti-imperialist political analysis. With a doctor friend as traveling companion, Guevara stows away on a cargo ship, explores Inca ruins, volunteers as a fireman, visits a leper colony and displays solidarity with miners and farm workers. Guevara's snide passing remarks targeting blacks, homosexuals and Jews reveal an unpleasant side of the countercultural icon. On balance, this candid journal, part self-discovery, part fieldwork, glimmers with portents of the future revolutionary.
