Traveling With Che Guevara

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TRAVELING WITH CHE GUEVARA
In 1952 Alberto Granado, a 29-year-old biochemist, and his friend Ernesto Guevara, a 23-year- old medical student from a distinguished Buenos Aires family, decided to explore their  continent. They set off from Cördoba in Argentina on a Norton 500cc motorbike and traveled  through Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela. The duo’s seven-month adventure varied from the suspenseful (falling in love, drinking, fighting) to the serious (volunteering as firemen and at  a leper colony). They worked as day laborers along the way: as soccer coaches, medical assistants, and furniture movers. This journey started the process that was to turn Ernesto—the  debonair, fun-loving student into Che, the revolutionary who had a profound impact on  the history of several nations.

Each man later wrote an account of the journey. Che’s Motorcycle Diaries was published  posthumously in 1992. Granado’s book was first published in Spanish in Cuba in 1978. Later,  both diaries were published together in Spanish, Italian, and French. This 2004 Newmarket Press edition marks the first time that Granado’s diary is published in the United States, coinciding  with the release of the Walter Salles film, The Motorcycle Diaries, starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Rodrigo de la Serna, based on the two memoirs. The Newmarket Press book includes ten  archival photographs, a timeline of the journey, and a new introduction by Granado.