Alacrity and Verve!
THE BOYS FROM DOLORES
Fidel Castro's Schoolmates From Revolution to Exile
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"An atmospheric, richly evocative history of modern Cuba...Mr. Symmes digs like a reporter and writes like a novelist...a personal, meticulous, deeply layered work of narrative journalism...superb...masterly...splendid...brilliantly hued...humorous and wise...luxuriously researched...brings us a ground truth, apolitical in the best sense, with a great depth of vision..." --New York Times
"Brilliant..Symmes is a staccato historian, a storyteller on speed...also a superb journalist. A priceless archive of the Cuban diaspora and argument for the importance of the storyteller's art." -- Washington Post
"Searching and beautifully written...generously intoxicated with its subject." -- Boston Globe
"An arsenic-laced valentine to the nation of Cuba." -- St. Petersburg Times
"Enthralling...Symmes' expertise and humanity shines through every line to vividly portray a troubled country and its people."--Big Issue (UK)
"Arresting, idiosyncratic, and utterly engaging... Symmes tells the story with alacrity and verve." -- Times of London
It's about what happened to the 237 other boys in Fidel Castro's boarding school, where those boys are today, and how they survived that serious clobbering known as being Cuban in the 20th Century.
CHASING CHE
A MOTORCYCLE JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE GUEVARA LEGEND
An account of driving my motorcycle across South America, on the trail of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, guerrilla icon. As a student in 1952, Che traveled South America for eight months.
I retraced much of that trip 44 years later, looking for the same people and places, and visiting some of the other scenes of his youth, his wars, and his death. I found farmers, guerrillas, and professors who knew him. I wrote about the roots of his radical ideas, and the guerrillas who still follow him a generation later. En route I fell off the motorbike, got drunk on moonshine, masqueraded as a priest, shook hands with lepers, and supped with smugglers.
My motorcycle trip took four and a half months, through four countries, from sea level to sixteen thousand feet, across deserts and in guerrilla zones. Covering all my obsessions from Shining Path terrorists to Patagonian trout fishing, with liberal doses of ambush tactics and electrical repairs, this book should, at very least, explain what the hell I was doing down there for so long.
Chasing Che was published in the US (2000), the UK (2001), Holland (2001), and Italy (2002).
Dot Commie
You feel an overwhelming urge to buy Chasing Che right now.
Despite some thoughtless Che propaganda, this "sweet spot" site lists many of the best Guevara links on the web.
Hear my interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air | on WAMU with Kojo Namdi