Sunday, October 21, 2007

Che Guevara's The Motorcycle Diaries

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna or just Che was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary, political figure and leader of Cuban and internationalist guerrillas. The Motorcycle Diaries is an autobiographical novel about his travel through South America with his friend Alberto Granado on a 1939 Norton 500 motorcycle.

The book presents the lighter parts of Che's character and the events which urged him to dedicate his life to fight and die for the cause of proletariat in Latin America. In the book he details the life of autochthonal peasantry throughout Latin America, including mine workers and persecuted communists fleeing their homes.

The book is a good example of the fact that, everybody is the same to start with. It's only when we encounter events and meet people, and the urge to do something special to make the world a better place to live in, we rise above a common man.