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Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara


Che Guevara.. I am damn sure that you have heard this name but I am also quite sure that most of you, reading this article right now, don't know what he stands for. Most people don't know anything beyond this name, in spite of the often encounter with his legendary picture of above.

For all those, here is a little piece of trivia to start with. Ernesto "Che" Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. But the book I am going to tell you about is not about revolutionary Che. Its about a a 23 year old Ernesto Guevara, who along with his friend Granado, went on a long trip across Latin America. Before this trip, he empathized about the people around him, but this trip radicalized his thought process completely. In retrospection, this can be considered as a spark which turned in a wild fire that spread across nations to fight against economic inequalities. 

The Motorcycle Diaries initially centered around youthful adventures, and slowly unfolds, the thought transformations when those young lads observe the injustices in the life of their impoverished countrymen and are exposed to people and social classes they would have never encountered otherwise. To their surprise, the road presented to them both a genuine and captivating picture of Latin American identity. 

This travelogue lets you closely witness a self-discovery of a young boy from an upper-middle-class family who dreamt of a united Latin America and spent his entire life for the same cause.  

Quotes from the book:
"I knew that when the great guiding spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic halves, I will be with the people."
"This is not a story of heroic feats, or merely the narrative of a cynic; at least I do not mean it to be. It is a glimpse of two lives running parallel for a time, with similar hopes and convergent dreams."

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