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I Embrace You with All My Revolutionary Fervor

Letters 1947-1967

Part of The Che Guevara Library

Author Ernesto Che Guevara
Foreword by Aleida Guevara
Edited by Maria del Carmen Ariet Garcia, Disamis Arcia Munoz
Hardcover
$35.00 US
Seven Stories Press
5.81"W x 8.79"H x 1.25"D  
On sale Nov 09, 2021 | 384 Pages | 9781644210956
Grades 9-12 + AP/IB
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The first-ever edition of Che Guevara's letters, the vast majority never-before published in English in any form.

Ernesto Che Guevara was a voyager—and thus a letter writer—for his entire adult life. The letters collected in I Embrace You with All My Revolutionary Fervor: Letters 1947-1967 range from letters home during his Motorcycle Diaries trip, to the long letter to Fidel after the success of the Cuban revolution in early 1959 (from which the book's title comes), from the most personal to the intensely political, revealing someone who not only thought deeply about everything he encountered, but for whom the process of social transformation was a constant companion from his youth until shortly before his death. His letters give us Che the son, the friend, the lover, the guerrilla fighter, the political leader, the philosopher, the poet. Che in these letters is often playful, funny, sometimes sarcastic, and deeply affectionate. His life was short, and these twenty years, from when he was 19 until days before his death, show it was also incredibly rich and full.

As his daughter Aleida Guevara, also a doctor like her father, writes, "When you write a speech, you pay attention to the language, the punctuation and so on. But in a letter to a friend or a member of your family, you don't worry about those things. It is you speaking, in your authentic voice. That's what I like about these letters; they show who Che really was and how he thought. This is the true political testimony of my father."
Born in Rosario, Argentina, on June 14, 1928, and killed on October 9, 1967, the short life of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna is that of one of the greatest and most enduring revolutionary figures of all time, named one of Time magazine's "icons of the 20th century." He was politicized first-hand during his travels as a young man around Latin America, and especially by witnessing the CIA-backed overthrow of the elected government of Jacobo Árbenz in 1954 in Guatemala. He sought out a group of Cuban revolutionaries exiled in Mexico City. And, in July 1955, immediately after meeting their leader Fidel Castro, enlisted in their expedition to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. The Cubans nicknamed him "Che," a popular form of address in Argentina.

Four years later, after a fierce revolutionary struggle, General Batista fled on January 1, 1959, and Che became a key leader in the new revolutionary government. Che was also the main representative of the Cuban revolutionary government around the world, heading numerous delegations to Asia, Africa, Latin America and the United States. Beginning in 1965, Che lead two Cuban missions to support revolutionary struggles elsewhere in the world, first in Congo and then in Bolivia. Both of these interventions failed, and Che's accounts of these struggles in Congo Diary and The Bolivian Diary show the lessons learned and the humility and fierce intelligence with which Che approached every revolutionary struggle.
Ernesto Che Guevara View titles by Ernesto Che Guevara
Foreword: Reading My Father’s Letters by Aleida Guevara
Che Guevara Biographical Note
Chronology of Che Guevara’s Life
Introduction by the editors


LETTERS FROM YOUTH (1947–1956)
Introduction
To Father (from Villa María), January 21, 1947
To Father (from Villa María), [late] 1947
To AMERIMEX (from Buenos Aires), February 28, 1950
To Mother (San Martín de los Andes), January 1952
To Aunt Beatriz (from Iquitos, Peru), June 1, 1952
To Father (from Iquitos), June 4, 1952
To Mother (from Bogotá), July 6, 1952
To Father (from La Paz), July 24, 1953
To Mother (from Cuzco), August 22, 1953
To Tita Infante (from Lima), September 3, 1953
To Mother (from Guayaquil), October 21, 1953
To Aunt Beatriz (from San José de Costa Rica), December 10, 1953
To Mother (from Guatemala), December 28, 1953
To Father (from Guatemala), January 15, 1954
To Aunt Beatriz (from Guatemala), February 12, 1954
To Tita Infante (from Guatemala), March 1954
To Mother (from Guatemala), [late] April 1954
To Zoraida Boluarte (from Guatemala), [no date]
To Mother (from Guatemala), April 1954
To Mother (from Guatemala), June 20, 1954
To Mother (from Guatemala), July 4, 1954
To Tita Infante (from Mexico), September 29, 1954
To Zoraida Boluarte (from Mexico), October 22, 1954
To Mother (from Mexico), November 1954
To Tita Infante (from Mexico), November 29, 1954
To Mother (from Mexico), [late] 1954
To Father (from Mexico), [February or March], 1955
To Aunt Beatriz (from Mexico), April 9, 1955
To Tita Infante (from Mexico), April 10, 1955
To Mother (from Mexico), May 9, 1955
To Zoraida Boluarte (from Mexico), May 16, 1955
To Father (from Mexico), May 27, 1955
To Mother (from Mexico), June 17, 1955
To Mother (from Mexico), July 20, 1955
To Mother (from Mexico), September 24, 1955
To Tita Infante (from Mexico), September 24, 1955 99
To Zoraida Boluarte (from Mexico), October 8, 1955
To Mother (from Mexico), [February] 25, 1956
To Tita Infante (from Mexico), March 1, 1956
To Mother (from Mexico), April 13, 1956
To my parents (from Mexico), July 6, 1956
To Mother (from Mexico), [July] 15, 1956
To Mother (from Mexico), [August or September], 1956
To Mother (from Mexico), [October 1956]
To Mother (from Mexico), [November 15,1956]
To Tita Infante (from Mexico), [November 1956]


LETTERS FROM THE GUERRILLA WAR IN CUBA (1956–1959)
Introduction
Part One: Letters from the Sierra Maestra
To Daniel, October 1, 1957
To the Civic Institutions of Buey Arriba, October 12, 1957
To Mario, November 23, 1957
To Daniel, [December] 1957
To Darío and Daniel, December 4, 1957
To Darío, December 30, 1957
To Daniel, December 30, 1957
To Calixto, July 13, 1958
Part Two: Letters from the Camagüey plains and Las Villas province
To Fidel Castro, September 8, 1958
To Fidel Castro, September 13, 1958
To Gómez [Raúl Castro], October 23, 1958
To Fidel Castro, October 23, 1958
To Fidel Castro, November 3, 1958
To the Provincial Leaders of the July 26 Movement in Las Villas, December 3, 1958


LETTERS AS A LEADER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT (1959–1965)
Introduction 183
To Trapito [Víctor Trapote], January 12, 1959
To Juan Hehong Quintana, February 5, 1959
To Remberto Martínez Jiménez, February 5, 1959
To José E. Martí Leyva, February 5, 1959
To William Morris, February 5, 1959
To Pedro Revuelta, February 5, 1959
To Luis Paredes López, February 5, 1959
To Carlos Franqui, March 10, 1959
To Dr. Miguel Ángel Quevedo, May 23, 1959
To Valentina González Bravo, May 25, 1959
To Loreto Cabrera Cruz, May 27, 1959
To Pedro Revuelta, May 27, 1959
To María Teresa Díaz Dicon, June 1, 1959
To José Ricardo Gómez, June 7, 1959
To Aleida March, June 22, 1959
To Aleida March, June 27, 1959
To Aleida March (from India), June 30, 1959
To Aleida March, July 12, 1959
To Aleida March, [no date]
To Aleida March, [no date]
To Aleida March, August 6, 1959
To Company of International Airports S.A., November 30, 1959
To Miguel Grau Triana, March 18, 1960
To Ernesto Sábato, April 12, 1960
To José Tiquet, May 17, 1960
To José R. Silva, July 5, 1960
To Sr. Lorenzo Alujas, August 9, 1960
To the General Administration of the Bank of China, October 15, 1960
To Gustavo Jiménez, December 30, 1960
To Fernando Barral, February 15, 1961
To Robert Starkie, June 12, 1961
To Rolando Díaz Aztaraín, June 27, 1962
To Laura Bergquist, October 15, 1962
To Anna Louise Strong, November 19, 1962
To Antonio Venturelli, November 19, 1962
To Carlos Franqui, December 24, 1962
To Nicolás Guillén, February 28, 1963
To Editorial Grijalbo, S.A., April 1, 1963
To Guillermo Lorentzen, May 4, 1963
To Peter Marucci, May 4, 1963
To Aleida Coto Martínez, May 23, 1963
To the compañeros of the motorcycle assembly plant, May 31, 1963
To Lisandro Otero, June 23, 1963
To Daniel Gispert, September 2, 1963
To José Matar, September 19, 1963
To Manuel Navarro Luna, October 18, 1963
To Arturo Don Varona, October 28, 1963
To Pablo Díaz González, October 28, 1963
To Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, October 28, 1963
To Lydia Ares Rodríguez, October 30, 1963
To Lisandro Otero, November 10, 1963
To Juan Ángel Cardi, November 11, 1963
To Oscar L. Torras de la Luz, January 3, 1964
To Regino G. Boti, February 2, 1964
To Charles Bettelheim, February 6, 1964
To Josefina Cabrera, February 11, 1964
To María Rosario Guevara, February 20, 1964
To Luis Amado Blanco, February 25, 1964
To José Medero Mestre, February 26, 1964
To Luis Corvea, March 14, 1964
To Eduardo B. Ordaz, May 26, 1964
To Leo Huberman y Paul M. Sweezy, June 12, 1964
To Ezequiel Vieta, June 16, 1964
To Fabio Vargas Vivanco, June 16, 1964
To Regino G. Boti, June 17, 1964
To the Cuban Trading Company of Works of Art and Culture, June 25, 1964
To Hubert Jacob, June 30, 1964
To Santiago Morciego y Manuel Hernández, July 3, 1964
To León Felipe, August 21, 1964
To Elías Entralgo, August 31, 1964
To Juana Rosa Jiménez, September 11, 1964
To Julio González Noriega, September 15, 1964
To Pedro Pérez Vega, September 23, 1964
To Manuel Moreno Fraginals, October 6, 1964
To Charles Bettelheim, October 24, 1964
To Fidel Castro, March 26, 1965


LETTERS FROM AFAR: The Congo and Bolivia (1965–1967)
Introduction
To Aleida March, [no date]
To my children, [no date]
To my parents, [no date]
To Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, [1965]
To Fidel Castro, April 1, 1965
To Fidel Castro (from the Congo), October 5, 1965
To Armando Hart, December 4, 1965
To Aleida March (from the Congo) [no date]
To Hilda Beatriz Guevara Gadea, February 15, 1966
To Haydée Santamaría, [1966]
To Aleida March (from Bolivia), December 1966
To my children (from Bolivia), 1966


APPENDICES: Letters written to Che Guevara
From Juan Almeida to Che (Sierra Maestra) December 20, 1957
From Celia Sánchez to Che (Sierra Maestra) December 13, 1957
From Armando Hart to Che (Sierra Maestra) December 25, 1957
From Camilo Cienfuegos to Che, April 24, 1958
From Fidel Castro, “To the Rebels of Las Villas,” (Sierra Maestra) October 2, 1958
From Lidia Doce to Che, [no date]
From Raúl Roa to Che, (Havana) December 19, 1963


FURTHER READING: Books by Che Guevara
INTRODUCTION

“Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”
Ernesto Che Guevara

Letters often reveal the innermost thoughts and emotions of a writer, an intellectual or artist, or, in this case, a revolutionary, who had both an outstanding intellect and a brilliant pen. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna — or “Che” as the world came to know him — was an inveterate letter writer and diarist throughout his short but extraordinary life. His letters and diaries are those of a master narrator, characterized by a brutal honesty, a remarkable lack of ego, a razor-sharp wit, an iron will and a great capacity to express his love and affection for his closest friends and family.

More than 80 percent of the letters in this selection of Che Guevara’s correspondence have never previously been translated and published in English. Beginning with the letters young Ernesto penned in his early travels around Latin America as a medical student, the reader can observe how he polished his unique style over the years. And as Ernesto is transformed into “Che” (a common way Argentines refer to themselves and are referred to by others), a dedicated revolutionary and original political thinker emerges from the wide-eyed young Argentine who set out to discover Latin America. “Each one of us is the architect of a new type of human being,” wrote Che years later, “for the new society we seek to create,” and it is that process of becoming or transformation that the reader can witness here in his letters.

Although he was never a student radical during his time at university, by 1954 he is writing to his mother from Guatemala, saying: “the Americas will be the theater of my adventures in a way that is much more significant than I could have imagined. I think I have really come to understand it and I feel [Latin] American, which means having a character distinct from all other peoples on the earth.”

Always an uncompromising seeker of the truth, committed only to what he described as “the sacred cause of the liberation of humanity,” in one of his last letters to his young children, Che advised them to “always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.”

His final letters to his partner Aleida, his children and Fidel Castro are both nostalgic and wistful, while also reiterating his unwavering commitment to his ideals. “Many will call me an adventurer,” Che wrote to his parents before leaving Cuba in 1966 on his fateful mission in Bolivia, “and that I am, only one of a different sort: one who risks his neck to prove his truths.”

As Che’s daughter Aleida comments: “When you write a speech, you pay attention to the language, the punctuation and so on. But in a letter to a friend or a member of your family, you don’t worry about those things. It is you speaking, in your authentic voice. That’s what I like about these letters; they show who Che really was. This is the true political testimony of my father.”

A few of these letters are well known, but most have only now been released from Che Guevara’s personal archive held at the Che Guevara Studies Center in Havana, directed by his widow Aleida March, and are published in English for the first time. This selection, compiled chronologically, presents letters from different moments of Che’s life, offering a new and intimate insight into the motivation, emotions and actions of an extraordinary human being. Living only 39 years, Che had an impact on our lives and dreams as few have had in all of human history.

María del Carmen Ariet Garcia
Copyright © 2021 by Ernesto Che Guevara. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Educator Guide for I Embrace You with All My Revolutionary Fervor

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(Please note: the guide displayed here is the most recently uploaded version; while unlikely, any page citation discrepancies between the guide and book is likely due to pagination differences between a book’s different formats.)

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"Arrogant, affectionate, and dogmatic, Guevara (1928–1967) is intimately revealed in this compilation of personal letters sent over the latter half of his extraordinary life. In the introduction, his daughter, Aleida Guevara, writes that unlike his meticulously planned fiery speeches, Che was more open in correspondence with friends and family. Spanning 20 years, these letters reflect that earnestness, following him from his teenage years to his impassioned farewells to those he left behind in Cuba just days before he was killed in 1967. He dutifully updates his mother on his health, teases a favorite aunt, and berates his wife, all while bearing a Zelig-like witness to the hemisphere’s defining political upheavals. His missives don’t mince words, either, especially when it comes to criticizing the government apparatus that followed the guerilla victory led by himself and Fidel Castro. In one letter—written just before he leaves Cuba in 1965 to fight for socialism in Africa—Che outlines to Castro the multiple problems he perceives with the state’s transition to socialism, surmising 'everyone involved in the management of the national economy... feels very disillusioned.' This offers a thrilling, eyewitness account of battles whose repercussions still reverberate today." 
—Publishers Weekly

About

The first-ever edition of Che Guevara's letters, the vast majority never-before published in English in any form.

Ernesto Che Guevara was a voyager—and thus a letter writer—for his entire adult life. The letters collected in I Embrace You with All My Revolutionary Fervor: Letters 1947-1967 range from letters home during his Motorcycle Diaries trip, to the long letter to Fidel after the success of the Cuban revolution in early 1959 (from which the book's title comes), from the most personal to the intensely political, revealing someone who not only thought deeply about everything he encountered, but for whom the process of social transformation was a constant companion from his youth until shortly before his death. His letters give us Che the son, the friend, the lover, the guerrilla fighter, the political leader, the philosopher, the poet. Che in these letters is often playful, funny, sometimes sarcastic, and deeply affectionate. His life was short, and these twenty years, from when he was 19 until days before his death, show it was also incredibly rich and full.

As his daughter Aleida Guevara, also a doctor like her father, writes, "When you write a speech, you pay attention to the language, the punctuation and so on. But in a letter to a friend or a member of your family, you don't worry about those things. It is you speaking, in your authentic voice. That's what I like about these letters; they show who Che really was and how he thought. This is the true political testimony of my father."

Author

Born in Rosario, Argentina, on June 14, 1928, and killed on October 9, 1967, the short life of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna is that of one of the greatest and most enduring revolutionary figures of all time, named one of Time magazine's "icons of the 20th century." He was politicized first-hand during his travels as a young man around Latin America, and especially by witnessing the CIA-backed overthrow of the elected government of Jacobo Árbenz in 1954 in Guatemala. He sought out a group of Cuban revolutionaries exiled in Mexico City. And, in July 1955, immediately after meeting their leader Fidel Castro, enlisted in their expedition to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. The Cubans nicknamed him "Che," a popular form of address in Argentina.

Four years later, after a fierce revolutionary struggle, General Batista fled on January 1, 1959, and Che became a key leader in the new revolutionary government. Che was also the main representative of the Cuban revolutionary government around the world, heading numerous delegations to Asia, Africa, Latin America and the United States. Beginning in 1965, Che lead two Cuban missions to support revolutionary struggles elsewhere in the world, first in Congo and then in Bolivia. Both of these interventions failed, and Che's accounts of these struggles in Congo Diary and The Bolivian Diary show the lessons learned and the humility and fierce intelligence with which Che approached every revolutionary struggle.
Ernesto Che Guevara View titles by Ernesto Che Guevara

Table of Contents

Foreword: Reading My Father’s Letters by Aleida Guevara
Che Guevara Biographical Note
Chronology of Che Guevara’s Life
Introduction by the editors


LETTERS FROM YOUTH (1947–1956)
Introduction
To Father (from Villa María), January 21, 1947
To Father (from Villa María), [late] 1947
To AMERIMEX (from Buenos Aires), February 28, 1950
To Mother (San Martín de los Andes), January 1952
To Aunt Beatriz (from Iquitos, Peru), June 1, 1952
To Father (from Iquitos), June 4, 1952
To Mother (from Bogotá), July 6, 1952
To Father (from La Paz), July 24, 1953
To Mother (from Cuzco), August 22, 1953
To Tita Infante (from Lima), September 3, 1953
To Mother (from Guayaquil), October 21, 1953
To Aunt Beatriz (from San José de Costa Rica), December 10, 1953
To Mother (from Guatemala), December 28, 1953
To Father (from Guatemala), January 15, 1954
To Aunt Beatriz (from Guatemala), February 12, 1954
To Tita Infante (from Guatemala), March 1954
To Mother (from Guatemala), [late] April 1954
To Zoraida Boluarte (from Guatemala), [no date]
To Mother (from Guatemala), April 1954
To Mother (from Guatemala), June 20, 1954
To Mother (from Guatemala), July 4, 1954
To Tita Infante (from Mexico), September 29, 1954
To Zoraida Boluarte (from Mexico), October 22, 1954
To Mother (from Mexico), November 1954
To Tita Infante (from Mexico), November 29, 1954
To Mother (from Mexico), [late] 1954
To Father (from Mexico), [February or March], 1955
To Aunt Beatriz (from Mexico), April 9, 1955
To Tita Infante (from Mexico), April 10, 1955
To Mother (from Mexico), May 9, 1955
To Zoraida Boluarte (from Mexico), May 16, 1955
To Father (from Mexico), May 27, 1955
To Mother (from Mexico), June 17, 1955
To Mother (from Mexico), July 20, 1955
To Mother (from Mexico), September 24, 1955
To Tita Infante (from Mexico), September 24, 1955 99
To Zoraida Boluarte (from Mexico), October 8, 1955
To Mother (from Mexico), [February] 25, 1956
To Tita Infante (from Mexico), March 1, 1956
To Mother (from Mexico), April 13, 1956
To my parents (from Mexico), July 6, 1956
To Mother (from Mexico), [July] 15, 1956
To Mother (from Mexico), [August or September], 1956
To Mother (from Mexico), [October 1956]
To Mother (from Mexico), [November 15,1956]
To Tita Infante (from Mexico), [November 1956]


LETTERS FROM THE GUERRILLA WAR IN CUBA (1956–1959)
Introduction
Part One: Letters from the Sierra Maestra
To Daniel, October 1, 1957
To the Civic Institutions of Buey Arriba, October 12, 1957
To Mario, November 23, 1957
To Daniel, [December] 1957
To Darío and Daniel, December 4, 1957
To Darío, December 30, 1957
To Daniel, December 30, 1957
To Calixto, July 13, 1958
Part Two: Letters from the Camagüey plains and Las Villas province
To Fidel Castro, September 8, 1958
To Fidel Castro, September 13, 1958
To Gómez [Raúl Castro], October 23, 1958
To Fidel Castro, October 23, 1958
To Fidel Castro, November 3, 1958
To the Provincial Leaders of the July 26 Movement in Las Villas, December 3, 1958


LETTERS AS A LEADER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT (1959–1965)
Introduction 183
To Trapito [Víctor Trapote], January 12, 1959
To Juan Hehong Quintana, February 5, 1959
To Remberto Martínez Jiménez, February 5, 1959
To José E. Martí Leyva, February 5, 1959
To William Morris, February 5, 1959
To Pedro Revuelta, February 5, 1959
To Luis Paredes López, February 5, 1959
To Carlos Franqui, March 10, 1959
To Dr. Miguel Ángel Quevedo, May 23, 1959
To Valentina González Bravo, May 25, 1959
To Loreto Cabrera Cruz, May 27, 1959
To Pedro Revuelta, May 27, 1959
To María Teresa Díaz Dicon, June 1, 1959
To José Ricardo Gómez, June 7, 1959
To Aleida March, June 22, 1959
To Aleida March, June 27, 1959
To Aleida March (from India), June 30, 1959
To Aleida March, July 12, 1959
To Aleida March, [no date]
To Aleida March, [no date]
To Aleida March, August 6, 1959
To Company of International Airports S.A., November 30, 1959
To Miguel Grau Triana, March 18, 1960
To Ernesto Sábato, April 12, 1960
To José Tiquet, May 17, 1960
To José R. Silva, July 5, 1960
To Sr. Lorenzo Alujas, August 9, 1960
To the General Administration of the Bank of China, October 15, 1960
To Gustavo Jiménez, December 30, 1960
To Fernando Barral, February 15, 1961
To Robert Starkie, June 12, 1961
To Rolando Díaz Aztaraín, June 27, 1962
To Laura Bergquist, October 15, 1962
To Anna Louise Strong, November 19, 1962
To Antonio Venturelli, November 19, 1962
To Carlos Franqui, December 24, 1962
To Nicolás Guillén, February 28, 1963
To Editorial Grijalbo, S.A., April 1, 1963
To Guillermo Lorentzen, May 4, 1963
To Peter Marucci, May 4, 1963
To Aleida Coto Martínez, May 23, 1963
To the compañeros of the motorcycle assembly plant, May 31, 1963
To Lisandro Otero, June 23, 1963
To Daniel Gispert, September 2, 1963
To José Matar, September 19, 1963
To Manuel Navarro Luna, October 18, 1963
To Arturo Don Varona, October 28, 1963
To Pablo Díaz González, October 28, 1963
To Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, October 28, 1963
To Lydia Ares Rodríguez, October 30, 1963
To Lisandro Otero, November 10, 1963
To Juan Ángel Cardi, November 11, 1963
To Oscar L. Torras de la Luz, January 3, 1964
To Regino G. Boti, February 2, 1964
To Charles Bettelheim, February 6, 1964
To Josefina Cabrera, February 11, 1964
To María Rosario Guevara, February 20, 1964
To Luis Amado Blanco, February 25, 1964
To José Medero Mestre, February 26, 1964
To Luis Corvea, March 14, 1964
To Eduardo B. Ordaz, May 26, 1964
To Leo Huberman y Paul M. Sweezy, June 12, 1964
To Ezequiel Vieta, June 16, 1964
To Fabio Vargas Vivanco, June 16, 1964
To Regino G. Boti, June 17, 1964
To the Cuban Trading Company of Works of Art and Culture, June 25, 1964
To Hubert Jacob, June 30, 1964
To Santiago Morciego y Manuel Hernández, July 3, 1964
To León Felipe, August 21, 1964
To Elías Entralgo, August 31, 1964
To Juana Rosa Jiménez, September 11, 1964
To Julio González Noriega, September 15, 1964
To Pedro Pérez Vega, September 23, 1964
To Manuel Moreno Fraginals, October 6, 1964
To Charles Bettelheim, October 24, 1964
To Fidel Castro, March 26, 1965


LETTERS FROM AFAR: The Congo and Bolivia (1965–1967)
Introduction
To Aleida March, [no date]
To my children, [no date]
To my parents, [no date]
To Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, [1965]
To Fidel Castro, April 1, 1965
To Fidel Castro (from the Congo), October 5, 1965
To Armando Hart, December 4, 1965
To Aleida March (from the Congo) [no date]
To Hilda Beatriz Guevara Gadea, February 15, 1966
To Haydée Santamaría, [1966]
To Aleida March (from Bolivia), December 1966
To my children (from Bolivia), 1966


APPENDICES: Letters written to Che Guevara
From Juan Almeida to Che (Sierra Maestra) December 20, 1957
From Celia Sánchez to Che (Sierra Maestra) December 13, 1957
From Armando Hart to Che (Sierra Maestra) December 25, 1957
From Camilo Cienfuegos to Che, April 24, 1958
From Fidel Castro, “To the Rebels of Las Villas,” (Sierra Maestra) October 2, 1958
From Lidia Doce to Che, [no date]
From Raúl Roa to Che, (Havana) December 19, 1963


FURTHER READING: Books by Che Guevara

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

“Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”
Ernesto Che Guevara

Letters often reveal the innermost thoughts and emotions of a writer, an intellectual or artist, or, in this case, a revolutionary, who had both an outstanding intellect and a brilliant pen. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna — or “Che” as the world came to know him — was an inveterate letter writer and diarist throughout his short but extraordinary life. His letters and diaries are those of a master narrator, characterized by a brutal honesty, a remarkable lack of ego, a razor-sharp wit, an iron will and a great capacity to express his love and affection for his closest friends and family.

More than 80 percent of the letters in this selection of Che Guevara’s correspondence have never previously been translated and published in English. Beginning with the letters young Ernesto penned in his early travels around Latin America as a medical student, the reader can observe how he polished his unique style over the years. And as Ernesto is transformed into “Che” (a common way Argentines refer to themselves and are referred to by others), a dedicated revolutionary and original political thinker emerges from the wide-eyed young Argentine who set out to discover Latin America. “Each one of us is the architect of a new type of human being,” wrote Che years later, “for the new society we seek to create,” and it is that process of becoming or transformation that the reader can witness here in his letters.

Although he was never a student radical during his time at university, by 1954 he is writing to his mother from Guatemala, saying: “the Americas will be the theater of my adventures in a way that is much more significant than I could have imagined. I think I have really come to understand it and I feel [Latin] American, which means having a character distinct from all other peoples on the earth.”

Always an uncompromising seeker of the truth, committed only to what he described as “the sacred cause of the liberation of humanity,” in one of his last letters to his young children, Che advised them to “always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.”

His final letters to his partner Aleida, his children and Fidel Castro are both nostalgic and wistful, while also reiterating his unwavering commitment to his ideals. “Many will call me an adventurer,” Che wrote to his parents before leaving Cuba in 1966 on his fateful mission in Bolivia, “and that I am, only one of a different sort: one who risks his neck to prove his truths.”

As Che’s daughter Aleida comments: “When you write a speech, you pay attention to the language, the punctuation and so on. But in a letter to a friend or a member of your family, you don’t worry about those things. It is you speaking, in your authentic voice. That’s what I like about these letters; they show who Che really was. This is the true political testimony of my father.”

A few of these letters are well known, but most have only now been released from Che Guevara’s personal archive held at the Che Guevara Studies Center in Havana, directed by his widow Aleida March, and are published in English for the first time. This selection, compiled chronologically, presents letters from different moments of Che’s life, offering a new and intimate insight into the motivation, emotions and actions of an extraordinary human being. Living only 39 years, Che had an impact on our lives and dreams as few have had in all of human history.

María del Carmen Ariet Garcia
Copyright © 2021 by Ernesto Che Guevara. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Educator Guide for I Embrace You with All My Revolutionary Fervor

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Praise

"Arrogant, affectionate, and dogmatic, Guevara (1928–1967) is intimately revealed in this compilation of personal letters sent over the latter half of his extraordinary life. In the introduction, his daughter, Aleida Guevara, writes that unlike his meticulously planned fiery speeches, Che was more open in correspondence with friends and family. Spanning 20 years, these letters reflect that earnestness, following him from his teenage years to his impassioned farewells to those he left behind in Cuba just days before he was killed in 1967. He dutifully updates his mother on his health, teases a favorite aunt, and berates his wife, all while bearing a Zelig-like witness to the hemisphere’s defining political upheavals. His missives don’t mince words, either, especially when it comes to criticizing the government apparatus that followed the guerilla victory led by himself and Fidel Castro. In one letter—written just before he leaves Cuba in 1965 to fight for socialism in Africa—Che outlines to Castro the multiple problems he perceives with the state’s transition to socialism, surmising 'everyone involved in the management of the national economy... feels very disillusioned.' This offers a thrilling, eyewitness account of battles whose repercussions still reverberate today." 
—Publishers Weekly

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