Che Guevara Diary Published

Che Guevara and Juan Almeida, leaders of the Cuban revolution. Guevara died in Bolivia in 1967 and Almeida passed on during September 2009., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Havana. June 15, 2011

Che diary published

Madeleine Sautié Rodríguez

DIARIO de un combatiente, Sierra Maestra-Santa Clara (1956-58) is the title of a book containing notes written by Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara in the two years preceding the triumph of the Revolution. The diary was launched yesterday at Havana’s International Press Center, to coincide with the 83rd anniversary of the birth of the heroic guerrilla.

With an introduction by María del Carmen Ariet, scientific coordinator at the Che Guevara Study Center and the Editorial Project on his life and work, and Oscar Fernández Mel, Che’s doctor and comrade in Sierra Maestra and the Congo, the diary is the basis of its author’s later work, Pasajes de la Guerra Revolucionaria.

Published by Ocean Press and Ocean Sur, who celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Che Guevara Editorial Project with the Study Center, the Diario… allows readers to appreciate in Che’s own words the guerrilla’s arrival in Cuba as an expeditionary aboard the Granma yacht, and the man who assumed with respect and responsibility a commitment to contribute to the liberation of the Cuban people.

The book, with a prologue by Armando Hart Dávalos, includes a glossary of names and reproductions of documents from the epic days of the Sierra Maestra and the Las Villas Front.

Also present at the launch were Jorge Risquet, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party; Aleida March and Aleida Guerra March; and family members of the Cuban Five unjustly incarcerated in U.S. jails.

Translated by Granma International