The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara

Between November 1966 and October 1967, Ernesto Che Guevara led a guerrilla campaign in Bolivia and kept a daily written record of it. His entries track the fight against the country's military government and the larger goal behind it: uniting workers and farmers across the continent in one revolutionary movement that could bring socialist change to South America.

Born in Argentina in 1928, Guevara finished medical school in 1953 and set out to travel the Americas. In Guatemala during 1954 he entered political struggle, backing President Jacobo Arbenz while the CIA worked to bring that elected government down. He escaped to Mexico, joined Fidel Castro's July 26 Movement, and sailed to Cuba on the yacht Granma in December 1956 as the troop's doctor.

Batista fell on January 1, 1959, and Guevara became a central figure in the new government, serving as minister of industry and heading the national bank. He resigned his posts in early 1965 and left Cuba, going first to the Congo. This edition adds excerpts from diaries and accounts by other combatants, including My Campaign with Che by Bolivian leader Inti Peredo, in English for the first time.