In April 1965, Che Guevara set out clandestinely from Havana to Congo to head a force of some 150 veteran Cuban soldiers to assist the Congolese Patrice Lumumba Battalion, four years after the assassination of the democratically elected socialist president of Congo, Patrice Lumumba. Because this diary deals with what Che admits was a “failure”, he examines every painful detail about what went wrong in order to draw constructive lessons for planned future guerrilla movements.

Unique among his books, Congo Diary gives us Che’s brutal honesty and his story-telling ability as he recounts this fascinating episode of guerrilla warfare unblinkingly and without sugar coating or jargon.

Considered by some to be Che’s best book, it is also one of the few that he had a chance to edit for publication after writing it.

Tal vez sorprenda que la imagen mas difundida del siglo xx no represente a una estrella de rock, o de Hollywood y mucho menos un hombre de negocios o un deportista de exito. Tampoco a un poeta, un pintor, o un cientifico. Ernesto Che Guevara no dirigio el destino de una potencia mundial y su imagen no fue resultado de una campana mediatica en sentido estricto, aunque podria decirse que ella es en si misma una campana con un mensaje reconocible. El Che es el hombre rebelde por excelencia pero el mismo fue ministro y banquero y dirigio juicios sumarisimos y ejecuciones. Tambien fue un icono del voluntarismo, expresion maxima (o minima, segun quiera verse) de la accion revolucionaria y eje de la construccion de una sociedad nueva.

Esta nueva edicion comentada del Diario de Bolivia, a cargo de su nieto Canek Sanchez Guevara, contiene nuevas reflexiones sobre la ultima etapa de la vida del Che y aclara al maximo las identidades de los implicados en su guerrilla y las situaciones que provocaron aquellos acontecimientos. Esta edicion tiene cerca de 400 notas al pie con abundante informacion historica, fragmentos de los diarios de otros guerrilleros, declaraciones de ex agentes de la CIA y de las fuerzas armadas bolivianas y un mapa que resume la ruta del Che en Bolivia.

Tal vez sorprenda que la imagen mas difundida del siglo xx no represente a una estrella de rock, o de Hollywood y mucho menos un hombre de negocios o un deportista de exito. Tampoco a un poeta, un pintor, o un cientifico. Ernesto Che Guevara no dirigio el destino de una potencia mundial y su imagen no fue resultado de una campana mediatica en sentido estricto, aunque podria decirse que ella es en si misma una campana con un mensaje reconocible. El Che es el hombre rebelde por excelencia pero el mismo fue ministro y banquero y dirigio juicios sumarisimos y ejecuciones. Tambien fue un icono del voluntarismo, expresion maxima (o minima, segun quiera verse) de la accion revolucionaria y eje de la construccion de una sociedad nueva.

Within a year after the triumphal entry into Havana at the beginning of 1959, Che Guevara began to set down the history of the guerrilla war. Fearful that the events would "dissolve into the past" and that an important part of the history of America would be lost, he urged other leaders of the Revolution to do the same, asking only "that the narrator be strictly truthful." His history of the war appeared episodically during the next few years in various Cuban periodicals such as Verde Olivo and Bohemia. In 1963, the Havana publishing house Ediciones Union collected nineteen episodes under the title Pasajes de la Guerra Revolucionaria. This volume, originally published in 1968, contains diagrams of several battles, photographs, and maps of the guerrilla itinerary in the Sierra Maestra. The introduction by Fidel Castro consists of the text of his speech in memory of Guevara at the Plaza de la Revolucion in 1967. "He wrote with the virtuosity of a master of our language," said Castro. "His narratives of the war are incomparable. The depth of his thinking is impressive. He never wrote about anything with less than extraordinary seriousness, with less than extraordinary profundity-and we have no doubt that some of his writings will pass on to posterity as classic documents of revolutionary thought."

'A Latin American James Dean or Jack Kerouac' Washington Post 'It's true; Marxists just wanna have fun... a revolutionary bestseller' Guardian At the age of twenty-three, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado set out from their native Argentina to explore their continent, with only a single 1939 Norton motorcycle to carry them, nicknamed La Poderosa ('the powerful one'). They travelled not to visit the usual tourist attractions, but to meet ordinary people and understand Latin American life. In amidst the tales of youthful adventures - of women, wine, thrilling escapes and the power of friendship - the young Che also learns first-hand about poverty, philosophy and philosophy and forms himself into the man who would become the world's most famous and admired revolutionary and freedom fighter. 'For every comic escapade of the carefree roustabout there is an equally eye-opening moment in the development of the future revolutionary leader. By the end of the journey, a politicized Guevara has emerged to predict his own legendary future' Time

An extraordinary selection of the letters of Che Guevara 'Always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world' Che Guevara was an inveterate letter writer and diarist throughout his short but extraordinary life. This selection of his letters begins with his youthful motorcycle travels around Latin America as a wide-eyed medical student, and goes on to cover the Cuban Revolutionary War - including his letter to Castro after its success - his subsequent role as a government leader, travels to the Congo and finally Bolivia at the end of his life. Together they map the emergence of a dedicated revolutionary, but also reveal him as a master narrator: honest and insightful, with a razor-sharp wit, an iron will and, in his intimate writings to his family, a great capacity to express affection for those closest to him.

This indispensable book includes three of Che Guevara's most influential essays describing his tactical philosophy of fighting a guerrilla war in Latin America. "Guerrilla Warfare," written in 1960, outlines Guevara's doctrine for guerrilla fighters, especially against Caribbean-style dictatorships. In "Guerrilla Warfare: A Method" (1963) and "Message to the Tricontinental" (1967), Guevara modified some of his earlier tenets. These latter two works move away from his earlier dogmatism, suggesting that Marxist revolution was possible even in purportedly democratic regimes. All three essays reflect his deeply held belief that a small, rural-based guerrilla army could trigger a revolution.

'Guerrilla warfare is a war of the masses, a war of the people' First published in 1961, following the successful Cuban Revolution, this is Che Guevara's handbook for guerrilla war. It covers strategy, tactics, terrain, organization of an army, logistics, field medical treatment, intelligence, propaganda and training, and focuses on seven 'golden rules' of guerrilla warfare. Widely studied both by insurrectionist movements and those who have tried to suppress them, this is the key text to understand how revolutions can be fought and won by ordinary people.

'Powerful and poetic ... For anyone interested in the myth of Che Guevara ... this book is essential reading' Colm Toibin, Observer 'We were an army of shadows, of ghosts, walking as if to the beat of some dark psychic mechanism...' The Cuban Revolution changed the course of the twentieth century. Following years of brutal tyranny and poverty, a band of idealistic young people fought against immense odds to overthrow a dictator and emerged victorious. This is the story of how they did it. Che Guevara's classic eyewitness account chronicles the transformation of a country, and of Che himself, from troop doctor to revolutionary icon. 'Che's life is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom' Nelson Mandela