Remembering Che: My Life with Che Guevara (Paperback)

Che Guevara’s widow remembers a great revolutionary romance tragically cut short by Che’s assassination in Bolivia.

When Aleida March first met Che Guevara, she was a twenty-year-old combatant from the provinces of Cuba, he an already legendary revolutionary and larger-than-life leader. And yet there was another, more human side to Che, one Aleida was given special access to, first as his trusted compañera and later as the love of his life.

With great immediacy and poignancy, Aleida recounts the story of their epic romance—their fitful courtship against the backdrop of the Cuban revolutionary war, their marriage at the war’s end and the birth of their four children, up through Che’s tragic assassination in Bolivia less than ten years later. Featuring excerpts from their letters, nearly one hundred never-before-seen photographs from their private collection, and a moving short story Che wrote for Aleida, here is an intimate look at the man behind the legend and the tenacious, courageous woman who knew him best—a story of passionate love, wrenching sacrifice, and unwavering heroism.

Excerpt

OUR ALEIDA

She held her silence for decades, finding refuge on another plane. Aleida March drew strength from her pain and then dedicated her life to planting the seed of irrepressible memory. In this book, she has given us something authentic, profound, complex and rich.

Moreover, her memories are remarkably precise and astute. Oblivion can take different forms: To perpetuate Che as a myth, an ideal, is to assign him to oblivion. As the icon of liturgies is also oblivion for Che, as is Che gazing into the future as seen through the lens of Korda—Korda the poet. Similarly, the left that does not struggle, and is sluggish of mind, can no longer be considered left—it, too, is destined for oblivion.

Memory is sown in a different way—through immortal texts, supported by an immortal example. Action as the result of a material expression of thought can be the inspiration for a new generation, one that knows how to struggle relentlessly, indefatigably, with clarity and courage.

Our Aleida, the revolutionary, despite her doubts, has shown she knows how to give. She knew that pain is nourished by the blood of martyrs and the blood of the universe. In this book she now reveals to us the Che that was missing, the loving Che, with an affection that transcends love. An eternity of love, when the essence of a life lived is revealed. A love that transcends tenderness and has nothing to do with abstract idealism. It is a love that is returned to the person offering it, and in that person finds its dwelling place.

This young urban guerrilla, who was shaped by the struggle, now many years later bravely offers herself to us in letters, notes, poems and reflections on a life full of pain, fulfillment, challenges, transgression and heartbreak. This was the love lived. Here Aleida shows us how a personality grew, how it was discovered and displayed. She shares the meeting that marked forever how two lives became united.

She shows us how these lifetimes can define one’s destiny. How the fragile nature of a poet can reside within steel—the “poet” who unleashed hurricanes. I knew that poet who unleashed hurricanes, and I knew that young woman of firm convictions. They knew the secret of love. How fortunate it is that she has been able to share with the reader some of this story, by extracting memories from her well-guarded intimacy as a way of sharing her beloved and thereby allowing us to come to know him better.

For all of that, Aleida, many thanks.

Alfredo Guevara
Havana

About the Author

ALEIDA MARCH is the director of the Che Guevara Studies Center, Cuba. From a humble family background, she joined the Cuban revolutionary underground movement as a young teacher in Santa Clara, central Cuba. She met Che during the revolutionary war and they married in June 1959. She lives with their four children and numerous grandchildren in Havana.