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• Arts and Culture
• International
• Literature
• 09 / 07 / 2007

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Forty years ago, there was a book that seemed to have unimportant information. However, now there are evidences, we did not know anything about the legend Guerrilla Fighter Commander Ernesto Che Guevara being a poetry lover.

With prologue by the Mexican writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Ches green notebook was published in an anthology format. It has 69 poems by four Latin Americna poets that most likely Guevara wrote down during his journey to Bolivia by mid 1960's.

These poems were written down in a green notebook found along with Ches backpack his owner carried, when he was captured Bolivian army in 1967 and that was secretly kept in a safe by the military intelligence of that Andean nation, told Taibo II during the book launch.

The Argentinean doctor guerrilla-fighters biographer Taibo II terms the referred text as a historical document, one more graphic evidence describing Ches personality, an account of the literary work of four Latin American poets.

They are Pablo Neruda (Chile), Nicolás Guillén (Cuba), César Vallejo (Peru) and León Felipe (Spain).

The anthology thrusts these intimist poems of social criticism, feelings and emotions into the light. "Its a new portrait, one more portrait" said the Mexican writer, who added the military government prior to Evo Morales had exerted pressures enough to avoid the book publication.

When he reported he was working on Ches green notebook, the Planeta Editorial received a letter of several Bolivian Generals demanding not to publish anything.

He recalled to have met with the Planeta editor Jesús Anaya, who gave him some photocopies with the recommendation of identifying the origin. To what the writer replied: "these are some authorless poems".

Later he found out who the owner of the green notebook was as well as the important details on the poems and their origin.

According to the biographer, Che found useless writing the name of the authors of the poems because he knew very well, who they were. Additionally he said not to have ever set his eyes on the original green notebook and that poetry became indispensable to Che during the guerrilla-fight mission in Bolivia.

"This love for reading grew as a counterweight to the impossibility of reading political essays, the manual of economics; you cannot read manuals of economics and keep your brain clear, unless you also read César Vallejo", he concluded.