Alberto Granado was an Argentine-
Cuban biochemistry doctor, writer, and scientist died he was , 88. He was the travelling companion of
Che Guevara during their trip around Latin America, and founder of the Santiago School of Medicine in
Cuba. He wrote at least one book,
Travelling with Che Guevara: The Making of a Revolutionary. The book also served as reference for the 2004 film,
The Motorcycle Diaries, in which he was played by
Rodrigo de la Serna, while Che Guevara was played by
Gael García Bernal. An elderly Alberto Granado makes a short appearance at the end of the film.
(August 8, 1922 – March 5, 2011)
Early years
Granado was born on August 8, 1922, in Hernando, province of Córdoba, Argentina to Dionisio T. Granado (a Spanish clerical employee of an Argentine railway company) and Adelina Jiménez Romero. In 1930, after
José Félix Uriburu toppled the nationalist government of
Hipólito Irigoyen, Granado's family relocated to
Villa Constitución,
province of Santa Fé, due to Dionisio T. Granado's position as a militant
trade unionist. In 1931, Granado was sent to live with his grandparents in Córdoba and in 1940, he attended the
University of Córdoba, where he studied
chemistry and
biochemistry.
He met Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna for the first time in 1945 after the latter's family moved to Córdoba. They first met after Granado had been briefly held by the police for his part in a high-school revolt. Che had accompanied Granado's brother, Tomás, on a visit to the police cells.
[1]
In 1943, Granado took part in the political protests against
General Juan Perón and was jailed for one year. Between 1947 and 1951, he studied at a clinical laboratory and at the San Franscico del Chañar
Leprosarium. Che made a point of visiting Granado at San Francisco de Chañar.
[1] Granado earned an
MSc in biochemistry and won a scholarship to Instituto Malbrán, in
Buenos Aires.
Travels in South America and Europe
Alberto Granado (left) with
Guevara (right) aboard their "Mambo-Tango" wooden raft on the
Amazon River in June of 1952. The raft was a gift from the
lepers whom they had treated.
Between December 29, 1951 and July 1952, Granado embarked on a tour of South America on his beloved
Norton 500cc
motorcycle —
Poderosa II — with
Che Guevara. Both kept diaries. Both men stayed at the
leprosarium in
San Pablo, Peru. They witnessed first hand the poverty of disenfranchised
native peoples and their frequent lack of access to otherwise cheap and basic
medical care. These experiences galvanized both men in realizing their future vocations — Guevara towards revolutionary politics and Granado to the pursuit of practical science.
Granado's journey ended in
Caracas, Venezuela, where he remained to work at the Cabo Blanco leprosarium in
Maiquetía. Guevara continued on to
Miami before returning home to Buenos Aires to complete his medical degree.
In 1955, Granado won a scholarship to the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome; whilst in Europe he visited France, Spain and Switzerland. He married Delia María Duque Duque upon his return.
Career in Cuba
In 1960, he visited
Cuba for the first time on Guevara's invitation. A year later, he moved there with his family to take up a post as professor of biochemistry at the School of Medicine of the
University of Havana. Later that year, he was one of the founders of the Institute for Basic and Pre-Clinical Sciences. In 1962, he founded the Faculty of Medicine at the
University of Santiago with a group of colleagues, the second in Cuba. Between 1970 and 1974, he served as senior professor there.
Between 1975 and 1986, Granado obtained his doctorate in
biological sciences and attended the World Congress on Genetics in Moscow. He also attended the Congress on
Polymorphism in
Leningrad and became centrally involved in the development of
Holstein Tropical cattle breeds. In 1978, he published his account of his and Guevara's 1951–1952 tour of South America, named
Con el Che por Sudamerica, in Spanish, Italian and French.
Between 1986 and 1990, he took part in the creation of the Cuban Genetics Society and was appointed its president.
Between 1991 and 1994, he devoted his time to validation and
methodology of his previous research in universities in Venezuela and Spain before his retirement in 1994. In 1997, he joined the campaign for solidarity with Cuba and promotion of Guevara's ideas at home and abroad.
Between 2002 and 2003, he was an on-set advisor to
Walter Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries, based upon Granado's
Con el Che por Sudamerica and Guevara's own account, published posthumously in 1967. Granado made a
cameo appearance as himself in the epilogue of the film. The first English-language edition of Granado's account was published in 2003, entitled
Travelling with Che Guevara: The Making of a Revolutionary.
On Che
"What I appreciated most was Che's honesty — and his ability to transform negative things into positive things. ... he was not compromising. It wasn't easy unless you shared his vision and believed in it."
In her film
"My Best Friend", producer Clare Lewins asks Granado what he believes to be the reason for
Che Guevara's continuing attraction, his response was:
"Because he was a man who fought and died for what he thought was fair, so for young people, he is a man who needs to be followed. And as time goes by and countries are governed by increasingly corrupt people ... Che's persona gets bigger and greater, and he becomes a man to imitate. He is not a God who needs to be praised or anything like that, just a man whose example we can follow, in always giving our best in everything we do."
[3]
Che Trusted Me (book)
In February 2010, it was announced that a new
Spanish language book entitled
El Che Confía En Mí (Che Trusted Me) would be launched by the Abril publishing house.
[4] The book, written by Rosa María Fernández Sofía, is based on a series of interviews conducted with Granado.
[4] According to the author:
"The story follows the friendship shared between the two friends from when Ernesto was 14-years-old and Alberto was in his 20s, outlining all the shared dreams and days, their great adventure through South America and what happened after they went their separate ways following their travels [...] It also contains Granado's reflections on Che's death, the returning of his mortal remains to Cuba and all the difficult stages that the Cuban Revolution and people have lived."
[4]
Granado died on March 5, 2011, at the age of 88 years. His death came 51 years after
Guerrillero Heroico was taken.
To see more of who died in 2010
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Mike DeStefano was an American stand-up comedian died from a heart attack he was , 44.. He used material from his heroin addiction, which began at age 15, and his recovery in brutally honest, profanity-laced routines. He also was a drug counselor to others. He had been clean for 11 years at the time of his death and was HIV positive. He died as a result of a heart attack.
A regular at clubs in New York and around the country, DeStefano gained popularity after appearing on television on Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham. He also appeared on Late Night With Conan O'Brien, Showtime's Whiteboyz in the Hood and other radio and television shows, and at popular comedy festivals, most notably US Comedy Arts Festival and Montreal's Just for Laughs festival. In 2010, he competed in the seventh season of NBC's Last Comic Standing and finished in fourth place.[5][6]
