PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
After first witnessing the Bolivian Revolution and then, in 1954, the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Jacobo rbenz in Guatemala by U.S.-backed forces, Ernesto Che Guevara escaped to Mexico, where he sought out a group of Cuban revolutionaries exiled in Mexico City, led by Fidel Castro, and immediately enlisted in their cause. The Cubans nicknamed him Che, a popular form of address in his native Argentina. The group set sail for Cuba on November 25, 1956, aboard the yacht Granma, with Che as the group's doctor. Within several months, Fidel had appointed him a commander of the Rebel Army, though he also continued to minister to wounded guerrilla fighters and captured Cuban government soldiers. Throughout the war Che kept a diary, and it is this diary that forms the basis of the book that would first be published in 1963 under the title Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War. After General Batista flees Cuba on January 1, 1959, Che becomes one of the key leaders of the new revolutionary government. He is also the most important representative of the Cuban Revolution internationally, heading numerous delegations and earning a reputation as a passionate and articulate spokesperson for Third World peoples. In April 1965, Che departs from Cuba to lead a guerrilla mission of some two hundred Cuban soldiers to support the revolutionary struggle in Congo, a mission he recounts in Congo Diary. After returning to Cuba in December 1965, Che prepares another guerrilla force, this time to Bolivia, where he arrives in November 1966, intending to challenge the country's military dictatorship. As in Congo, there emerge fault lines that prevent him from receiving popular support in Bolivia. He is captured there by U.S.-trained counterinsurgency forces on October 8, 1967, and murdered in cold blood the next day. His Bolivian diaries were later edited and published as The Bolivian Diary. Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War is one of the very few books by Che that was published in book form during his lifetime.
