The Motorcycle Diaries

“Most of the book is not explicitly political, but Guevara’s profound radicalization is shown through his growing indignation toward American imperialism, the oppression of Indigenous people, and “profound tragedy circumscribing the life of the proletariat the world over” that he witnesses firsthand during his travels. Guevara went on to join Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution against the Cuban government, eventually becoming the minister of industry in the new one-party Communist state. The Motorcycle Diaries is a coming-of-age story, an intimate glimpse at the beginning of one boy’s transformation into a man who some remember as a murderer and some remember as a martyr.”
— Calla Walsh, Teen Vogue

ERNESTO GUEVARA DE LA SERNA was born in Rosario, Argentina, on June 14, 1928. While studying for a medical degree in Buenos Aires, he took a trip with his friend Alberto Granado on an old Norton motorcycle through all of Latin America, the basis for The Motorcycle Diaries. During his travels he witnessed the Bolivian revolution in 1953; and, in Guatemala in 1954, the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz by US-backed forces. Forced to leave Guatemala, he went to Mexico City, where he linked up with exiled Cuban revolutionaries and met Fidel Castro in 1955. Che joined their expedition to Cuba, where the revolutionary war began in the Sierra Maestra mountains. At first Che was the troop doctor, and later became Rebel Army commander in July 1957. Following the rebels’ victory on January 1, 1959, he was a key leader of the new revolutionary government and also of the political organization that in 1965 became the Communist Party of Cuba.

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