The Motorcycle Diaries

The Motorcycle Diaries

• Genre: Nonfiction; Memoir; Travel Writing
• Originally Published: 1992
• Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
• Structure/Length: Approximate 175 pages; approximately 5 hours, 28 minutes on audiobook
• Central Concern: The book chronicles Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s travels across South America with his friend Alberto Granado in the early 1950s. Through the journey on their motorcycle, they encounter various social and economic conditions, which deeply impact Guevara and contribute to his developing socialist and revolutionary views.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Political ideology; depictions of poverty and social injustice; mild language; some sexist and racist assumptions

Che Guevara, Author

• Bio: Born 1928; died 1967; Argentine Marxist revolutionary; trained as a doctor; instrumental in the Cuban Revolution; served in various government positions in Cuba; involved in revolutionary activities in other countries; killed in Bolivia while attempting to spark a revolution
• Other Works: Guerrilla Warfare (1961); Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (1968); The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo (1999)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Guide:

• Pan-Americanism
• The Exploitation of the Working Classes
• Resistance to an Unjust Order and Oppression of Indigenous Peoples

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Teaching Guide, students will:

• Develop an understanding of the political, economic, and historical contexts related to the development of pro-communist ideals that impact Guevara’s growth as a Latin American revolutionary.