Short description
Ernesto Che Guevara, an Argentinian doctor of middle-class parents, rose to fight with Fidel Castro in the Cuban revolution and later tried to spread that revolution in other countries in Latin America and Africa. This is an account of a man who became a cultural icon to a generation.
Review
The latest in a long line of Che biographies. Cool and detached, yet always sympathetic, Castaneda whisks us through the early years - the genteel poverty of Che's childhood, the famous motorbike ride across the continent - and gets to the meat of the matter, Cuba, as fast as he can. This wholly compelling book really hits its stride when Che lands with Castro in the mangrove swamps of Los Cayuelos and they pull off the most unlikely, and audacious, revolution of the postwar period. It is here, in the heady days of post-Batista Havana, in the Soviet Union (where Che was sent to drum up financial support), the Congo and Bolivia, that Castaneda unearths a mountain of anecdotes. When Castro asks for an economist to run the National Bank, Che shoots up his hand. Only later (when he has ruined Cuba's economy) does he admit that he thought Fidel said communist. The story may be untrue (Castaneda thinks so) but it gives a good idea of Che's fiscal skills. The man may have been naive, incompetent, even ruthless. Yet somehow, in the end, as Che lies bullet-ridden on a slab in a Bolivian police station, it is not these faults we are asked to remember, but his idealism, his honesty - and above all, his bravery. Castaneda's work is a timely reminder of those qualities, and a thoroughly absorbing biography of a flawed but fascinating man. (Kirkus UK)