"The first thing to note is that in my son's veins flowed the blood of the Irish Rebels, the Spanish Conquistadors and the Argentenian patriots. Evidently Che inherited some of the features of our restless ancestors. There was something in his nature which drew him to distant wanderings, dangerous adventures and new ideas."
— Ernesto Guevara Lynch, Che's Father
Born Ernesto Guevara on June 14, 1928 in Rosario, Argentina and the oldest of five siblings raised with leftist learnings, Ernesto was introduced to many political perspectives as a very young child. His father was a supporter of Juan Peron and socialism often had republicans from the Spanish Civil War in the home, which led to Ernesto's ideas of socialism.
Although he suffered from a horrible case of asthma, Ernesto was an avid rugby union player and got the nickname Fuser, which was his mother's maiden name de la Serna and the word el Furibundo(raging), for his fierceness on the team.He also earned the name Chancho(pig) from his classmates because of the fact that he rarely bathed and wore what he called "a weekly shirt." Guevara was taught chess by his father and was participating in local tournaments at the age of twelve. Beginning in adolescence and lasting him throughout his life, he developed a love for poetry. Guevara's home had a library of almost 3,000 books, which persuaded him to become a persistent and fast reader. Karl Marx, Jules Vern, H.G. Wells and Robert Frost among many others were Guevara's favorites.
As he grew, he developed a taste for Ciro Alegria, Jorge Icaza, Horacio Quiroga, whose ideas would be categorized in his notebooks full of concepts, definitions, and philosophies of influential intelectuals such as Aristotle and Bhudda.
In the year of 1948, Guevera went to the university of Buenos Aires to study medicine. In 1951 he took a year off to go on a motorcycle trip with his friend Alberto Grenado. While on this trip, Guevara kept a series of notes which he published as The Motorcycle Diaries. This book became a New York Times bestseller and was adapted into a 2004 movie.After his trip, Guevara became sure that armed revolution was the solution to the oppression that South America was facing. He returned to school and got his degree in 1953.
