Alberto Granado, Argentine-born Cuban biochemist and writer, travel companion of Che Guevara (The Motorcycle Diaries) died he was , 88

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

Main articles: The Motorcycle Diaries (book) and The Motorcycle Diaries (film)

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

Che Guevara (1928–1967)

"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."

—Alberto Granado ^[2]

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.

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