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Even to those without Marxist sympathies, Che Guevara (1928-67) was a dashing, charismatic figure: the asthmatic son of an aristocratic Argentine family whose sympathy for the world's oppressed turned him into a socialist revolutionary, the valued comrade-in-arms of Cuba's Fidel Castro and a leader of guerilla warfare in Latin America and Africa. Journalist Jon Lee Anderson's lengthy and absorbing portrait captures the complexities of international politics (revolutionary and counter); his painstaking research has unearthed a remarkable amount of new material, including information about Guevara's death at the hands of the Bolivian military.
From Booklist
Earlier this year, there was an exceptional and exciting novel, The Dancer Upstairs, about a Latin American revolutionary and his captor by reporter Nicholas Shakespeare. Soon to be published is this exceptional and exciting biography of the life and death of the larger-than-life revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentine doctor who joined with Castro to overturn Fulgencio Batista's reign in Cuba, and it is written by a reporter. Anderson broke the story about the location of Che Guevara's burial site in 1996 and now uses much of the rest of his formidable research to fill this ample history of Che, which is, as well, a significant history of the turbulent post^-World War II world of Latin America. Unlike other works about Che and that time, this one reflects information derived from the unpublished diaries controlled by Che's widow, Aleida March; from Cuban government archives that were sealed to outsiders (Cuba is celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Che and his comrades through 1997); and from current, revealing interviews of Che's closest friends and comrades. Anderson's up-close look, with beauty marks and tragic flaw so effortlessly rendered, brings the reader face to face with a man whose "unshakable faith in his beliefs was made more powerful by his unusual combination of romantic passion and a coldly analytical mind." Readers can identify with Che's concern for the poor and hungry, even if that identification is tempered in our rush to store up goods, even if giving alms to the poor is more fashionable than taking a heroic stance to elevate them. This book, with its 89 photographs, will be an invaluable addition to the literature of American revolutionaries. Bonnie Smothers
