The international success of the film The Motorcycle Diaries and of the books it is based on makes clear our deep and continuing fascination with the young Che Guevara. Now, this landmark book offers a rich and wider perspective. It constitutes the definitive insider portrait of Che from his birth to the moment he joined Castro to train for the invasion of Cuba - an episode which changed his life - and the course of history - for ever. This volume is assembled from two separate books never previously published in English - My Son Che and A Soldier of the Americas, both written by Che's father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch. It also includes, for the first time anywhere, Che's diary of his bicycle journey around Northern Argentina. In a unique and wonderfully vivid narrative, we are shown Che's bourgeois but nonconformist childhood, the people and books that shaped him and the political events that rocked his teenage years, including the Spanish Civil War and the emergence of Nazism. Drawing on Che's letters as he travels further and further afield on his journeys into Latin America, the book charts his excitement at what he sees, the spontaneous empathy he feels for those he meets and the humour with which he conveys his feelings - all of which sheds new light on the development of an intrepid, compassionate and adventurous boy who grew to become an iconic hero throughout the world.