Read Latin America Diaries Online
Authors: Ernesto Che Guevara
CHE GUEVARA PUBLISHING PROJECT
THE DIARIES:
The Motorcycle Diaries (1952)
Latin America Diaries (1953)
Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (1956-59)
Congo Diary (1965)
The Bolivian Diary (1966-67)
ALSO AVAILABLE:
Che: The Diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara
Che Guevara Reader
Global Justice
Self-Portrait: A Photographic and Literary Memoir
Marx & Engels: A Biographical Introduction
Our America and Theirs
The Great Debate on Political Economy and Revolution
The Awakening of Latin America
ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA
Latin America Diaries
Otra Vez
or a second look at Latin America
Foreword by Alberto Granado
Cover design ::maybe
Cover image: Ernesto Che Guevara on Popocatépetl volcano, Mexico
Copyright © 2011 Aleida March
Copyright © 2011 Ocean Press
Copyright © 2011 Che Guevara Studies Center
Photos copyright © 2011 Che Guevara Studies Center
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN 978-0-9870779-7-4
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2011922103
First edition published in 2011
Published in Spanish as
Otra Vez
978-1-920888-78-7
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Contents
Chronology of Ernesto Che Guevara
A View from the Banks of the Giant of Rivers
Machu-Picchu: Stone Enigma of the Americas
A los mineros de Bolivia (To the Bolivian Miners) (April 9)
Invitación al camino (An Invitation to Travel) (December 1954)
Newspaper reports of Ernesto Guevara during this trip
Chronology of Ernesto Che Guevara
June 14, 1928
Ernesto Guevara is born in Rosario, Argentina, of parents Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Celia de la Serna; he will be the oldest of five children.
JanuaryâJuly 1952
Ernesto Guevara travels around Latin America with his friend Alberto Granado on the motorbike,
La Poderosa
. The journal from this trip is posthumously published as
The Motorcycle Diaries
.
March 10, 1952
General Fulgencio Batista carries out a coup d'état in Cuba.
July 7, 1953
After graduating from medical school, Ernesto Guevara sets off again to travel through Latin America. He visits Bolivia, observing the aftermath of the 1952 revolution, and Peru where he revisits the Inca city of Machu-Picchu.
July 26, 1953
Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful armed attack on the Moncada army garrison in Santiago de Cuba, launching the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the Batista regime.
December 1953
Ernesto Guevara meets a group of Cuban survivors of the Moncada attack in San José, Costa Rica.
December 24, 1953
Ernesto Guevara arrives in Guatemala, then under the popularly elected government of Jacobo Ãrbenz.
JanuaryâJune 1954
While in Guatemala, he studies Marxism and becomes involved in the community of Latin American political exiles who are active there. This group includes exiled Cuban revolutionaries and Hilda Gadea, a revolutionary intellectual from Peru.
June 27, 1954
President Ãrbenz resigns in response to a military coup by Carlos Castillo Armas that was part of the CIA's “Operation Success.”
August 1954
Mercenary troops backed by the CIA enter Guatemala and begin the brutal repression of Ãrbenz supporters. Ernesto Guevara seeks political asylum in the Argentine embassy in Guatemala City.
September 18, 1954
Ernesto Guevara reaches Mexico after fleeing Guatemala. He finds part-time work in the Children's and General hospitals and supplements his income with photography and some editorial work for Agencia Latina (an Argentine press agency).
July 1955
Ernesto Guevara meets Fidel Castro in Mexico City and immediately agrees to join the planned guerrilla expedition. The Cubans nickname him “Che,” an Argentine term of greeting.
August 18, 1955
Ernesto Guevara marries Hilda Gadea in Mexico. Their daughter, Hildita, is born the following February. The marriage soon falls apart.
June 24, 1956
Ernesto Guevara is arrested along with a group of Cuban revolutionaries, rounded up by the Mexican government to thwart a supposed conspiracy to assassinate the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Ernesto is one of the last to be released from prison and, defying an order to leave Mexico, goes underground.
November 25, 1956
Eighty-two combatants, including Che Guevara as troop doctor, sail for Cuba aboard the
Granma.
December 2, 1956
The
Granma
reaches Cuba at Las Coloradas in Oriente Province. After an initial setback, the guerrilla struggle begins.