Che Guevara: A Graphic Biography »

Chie Shimano and Kiyoshi Konno both live in Japan.

An extraordinary illustrated graphic novel about the legendary political figure Che Guevara.

His name is equated with rebellion, revolution, and socialism. His face is on tee-shirts all over the world. Che Guevara's life has been explored and portrayed in numerous books and films, including The Motorcycle Diaries, and he continues to captivate the public imagination more than forty years after his death. Guevara became politically active in his native Argentina, but gained notoriety after he met Fidel Castro and became instrumental in Castro's efforts in Cuba. Guevara then went on to Bolivia, where he was captured and killed by the Bolivian army while trying to incite revolution. This illustrated biography tells the riveting story of Che's life and death through the popular Japanese art form manga.

Publishers Weekly

This manga biography of Che Guevara demonstrates Cuba's unique ability to serve as a political litmus test. You can infer a good deal about folks who see Castro as a cartoonish supervillain and about people who just can't think of a single critical thing to say about his regime. Konno falls into the latter camp, as his discussion of Che is essentially propaganda. Che's much romanticized youth as a motorcycle-driving vagabond is set as the catalyst for a profound intellectual awakening. Everything Che does, from abandoning a wife and child to leading bloody campaigns throughout Latin America and the Congo, is for the sake of justice. Konno has no time for piddling discussions of Che's penchant for summary executions, his questionable skill at guerrilla warfare, or his incompetence as a national economic manager. Similarly, the book takes for granted communism's rightness. In spite of this, it's a powerfully drawn comic, and the writing is at its most effective in its scathing critique of American cold war foreign policy. Che's adventures, as they are captured here, make for exciting fiction. Look elsewhere for a more balanced story. (Oct.)