He was a legend in his lifetime; after his tragic death, he became a myth. Ernesto Che Guevara’s Bolivian campaign, filled with unbearable suffering and torment, is more and more often compared to Christ’s ascent to Golgotha. The mysterious death of the comandante is still wrapped in secrecy, and “the curse of Che” relentlessly catches up with the executioners of the Heroic Partisan long after, for many years to come.
The main character of the book by historian Alexander Kolpakidi and writer and literary scholar Roman Kozhukharov, “The Curse of Che Guevara,” is Aldo Collodi—one of the initiators of the famous “Latin American boom,” and in the past an active participant in revolutionary struggle, the guerrilla warfare (*guerilla*). The plot’s core is the account of one of three partisans who miraculously survived Che Guevara’s “savage” campaign. From the former guerrilla fighter—*guerillero*—Aldo learns monstrous and terrible details of what truly happened in 1967 in the impassable Bolivian jungle. Gradually, the main character comes to understand the true goals that Che Guevara was pursuing as he headed toward his own Golgotha—his “savage” campaign. This discovery becomes a real revelation for him.