Patrick Symmes: Chasing Che

By MARGIE THOMSON

On his significantly more powerful motorbike, Symmes retraces the 1952 motorbike journey across South America made by Che Guevara in the days when that young man was simply Ernesto, a promising medical student with a fateful zest for ideas, and a mind open to the world around him.

Mindful of the many ways Che has been appropriated since his death in 1967, Symmes "retreats towards bedrock," trying to discover as much as he can about Che Guevara "before he was anyone's myth except his own."

The result is a travelogue of people, places, history and ideas, always insightful and entertaining.

Symmes meets one of Guevara's early loves, runs out of petrol in the Argentine desert, and drinks himself blind with Che's travelling partner from that 1952 trip, Alberto Granado.

Constable and Robinson

$29.95