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Tania la guerrillera: Y la epopeya suramericana del Che (Ocean Sur)
Tania became one of Cuba’s most successful spies in Latin America, penetrating Bolivia’s highest political circles. When her cover was blown, she joined Che’s guerrilla group but was killed in an ambush in August 1967. Ulises Estrada was the principal organizer of the Bolivia mission and trained Tania as the key undercover agent. Although “against the rules” in such espionage operations, they fell in love and intended to make a life together. Available in English as Undercover with Che Guevara in Bolivia (ISBN 1-876175-43-5)
326 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2005
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About the author
Ulises Estrada Lescaille
2 books2 followersDámaso José Lescaille Tabares, AKA Ulises Estrada Lescaille, was a revolutionary who aided Ernesto Che Guevara's campaigns in Africa during the 1960s.
Estrada held important posts in the Cuban Interior Ministry over the years, performing "sensitive missions" related to Latin American guerrilla movements in the 1960s.
He was the lover of the East German-born communist revolutionary known as Tania, nee Tamara Bunke, who was killed fighting alongside Guevara in Bolivia in 1967.
Estrada was close to the legendary Guevara, a leader of the Cuban revolution who left the island in the 1960s to foment revolutions in Africa and Latin America before his death in Bolivia in 1967.
Estrada collaborated with commandante Ernesto Che Guerra in his internationalist cause in the Congo and the national liberation struggle in Guinea Bissau, alongside Amilcar Cabral.
In 1975, Estrada was named to the number two position in the Communist Party's America Department, which managed relations with the region's leftist guerrilla movements.
He also served as Cuba's ambassador in Jamaica, Yemen, Algeria and Mauritania, and was a journalist for Granma and other Cuban media.
In his last years, he was the editor of the magazine Tricontinental.
Estrada held important posts in the Cuban Interior Ministry over the years, performing "sensitive missions" related to Latin American guerrilla movements in the 1960s.
He was the lover of the East German-born communist revolutionary known as Tania, nee Tamara Bunke, who was killed fighting alongside Guevara in Bolivia in 1967.
Estrada was close to the legendary Guevara, a leader of the Cuban revolution who left the island in the 1960s to foment revolutions in Africa and Latin America before his death in Bolivia in 1967.
Estrada collaborated with commandante Ernesto Che Guerra in his internationalist cause in the Congo and the national liberation struggle in Guinea Bissau, alongside Amilcar Cabral.
In 1975, Estrada was named to the number two position in the Communist Party's America Department, which managed relations with the region's leftist guerrilla movements.
He also served as Cuba's ambassador in Jamaica, Yemen, Algeria and Mauritania, and was a journalist for Granma and other Cuban media.
In his last years, he was the editor of the magazine Tricontinental.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 11, 2020
How must a woman live her life?
She was born to German communist parents in Argentina in 1937 (and so would have been as old as my father had they both been still alive). After World War II the family moved to East Germany but she was soon drawn to the Cuban Revolution whose main protagonists included an Argentinian, Che Guevara.
Born Haydee Tamara Bunke Bider, she soon became one of Cuba’s most successful agents, going by several aliases, but eventually became more well-known as “Tania.” She was very pretty and there had been suspicions about her having been Che Guevara’s lover but this book dismisses the rumours most probably because the author Ulises Estrada, another member of Che Guevara’s revolutionary group, himself claims to have been Tania’s boyfriend with whom she had reportedly shared her dream of raising her own family and having children by him someday.
While Che Guevara was busy with his guerrilla activities in the hinterlands of Bolivia, Tania was supposed to be his undercover asset within the city and to maintain a cover she married an unsuspecting Bolivian student so she could pretend that she, an Argentinian, is in Bolivia not because of any revolutionary, leftist hanky-panky but only because she fell in love.
But this did not last long. Bolivian intelligence (aided by the CIA) soon blew her elaborate cover and so she instead went up to the mountains to join Che Guevara. She carried a rifle, endured a lot of privations, lost weight, but remained beautiful until the end.
She died in an ambush and probably wasn’t even able to fire her rifle. An anecdote told by one of the men who was with her in some of the marches she did in the jungles,rivers, and forests, which I find poignant, is that she carried with her a little blue bag that she wore on her shoulder and that she liked to collect pretty and colourful little stones and place them in that bag (p. 119).
Tania is not in t-shirts now like Che Guevara but she’s one of the main characters in a film directed by Steven Soderbergh with one of my favourite actors, Benicio del Toro, as Che.
She was born to German communist parents in Argentina in 1937 (and so would have been as old as my father had they both been still alive). After World War II the family moved to East Germany but she was soon drawn to the Cuban Revolution whose main protagonists included an Argentinian, Che Guevara.
Born Haydee Tamara Bunke Bider, she soon became one of Cuba’s most successful agents, going by several aliases, but eventually became more well-known as “Tania.” She was very pretty and there had been suspicions about her having been Che Guevara’s lover but this book dismisses the rumours most probably because the author Ulises Estrada, another member of Che Guevara’s revolutionary group, himself claims to have been Tania’s boyfriend with whom she had reportedly shared her dream of raising her own family and having children by him someday.
While Che Guevara was busy with his guerrilla activities in the hinterlands of Bolivia, Tania was supposed to be his undercover asset within the city and to maintain a cover she married an unsuspecting Bolivian student so she could pretend that she, an Argentinian, is in Bolivia not because of any revolutionary, leftist hanky-panky but only because she fell in love.
But this did not last long. Bolivian intelligence (aided by the CIA) soon blew her elaborate cover and so she instead went up to the mountains to join Che Guevara. She carried a rifle, endured a lot of privations, lost weight, but remained beautiful until the end.
She died in an ambush and probably wasn’t even able to fire her rifle. An anecdote told by one of the men who was with her in some of the marches she did in the jungles,rivers, and forests, which I find poignant, is that she carried with her a little blue bag that she wore on her shoulder and that she liked to collect pretty and colourful little stones and place them in that bag (p. 119).
Tania is not in t-shirts now like Che Guevara but she’s one of the main characters in a film directed by Steven Soderbergh with one of my favourite actors, Benicio del Toro, as Che.
September 30, 2019
This book is ok. The book itself is only about 150pgs with almost 350pgs of appendices. The book itself is interesting, but seems like it ended before it truly got started, but that's partly due to the tragic way she died and the mission came to an end. I do however admit the appendices are amazing for someone doing research on Tania and the Bolivian guerrilla movement.
March 14, 2025
The author was both the lover of the subject of this book, Haydee Tamara Bunke Bider, given the nom de guerre 'Tania', who was a believer in the Communist cause for a pan-Latin American revolution and who died with Che Guevara during his attempt to export the revolution to Bolivia, and the author was also her instructor in spycraft with one of the agencies in Cuban intelligence. The precision in his language, even in translation, is often times kind of blocky and stodgy, overly cooked, as many Communist officials can be, but thoroughly researched and composed. He lacks the sense of narrative that biographers typically possess (pointless to compare him to Che's writing or even Fidel's speeches), and in all, this reads somewhat like a government report that permitted personal feelings to encroach upon the text. He obviously loved her and wished to settle down with her when she returned from Bolivia. But it never became sentimental, except in the final sentences.
Two of the more interesting items from the book: 1 - her parents were German Communists who fled the Nazis, one parent being a Russian Jew, finding respite in Argentina before the war. So she was a red diaper baby who was passionate about a belief system she inherited. 2 - The author mentions an incident in France (iirc?) where some stranger she bumped into made an alarming remark that possibly clocked her as linked to the Cubans. Cuban intel said it was just random and harmless. Later, the Bolivian army miraculously found her case of fake identity spy craft stuff in her car in a garage, during a sweep. Her cover blown, she had to leave the city and join Che in the mountains. Not a wild guess that the CIA probably was tracking her as soon as she crossed the Iron Curtain to begin infiltrating the West before making her way to South America.
Two of the more interesting items from the book: 1 - her parents were German Communists who fled the Nazis, one parent being a Russian Jew, finding respite in Argentina before the war. So she was a red diaper baby who was passionate about a belief system she inherited. 2 - The author mentions an incident in France (iirc?) where some stranger she bumped into made an alarming remark that possibly clocked her as linked to the Cubans. Cuban intel said it was just random and harmless. Later, the Bolivian army miraculously found her case of fake identity spy craft stuff in her car in a garage, during a sweep. Her cover blown, she had to leave the city and join Che in the mountains. Not a wild guess that the CIA probably was tracking her as soon as she crossed the Iron Curtain to begin infiltrating the West before making her way to South America.
December 21, 2020
Femmes + women are often left out of important historical social justice flights this is a great book showing us a different and very real view
Want to Read
January 21, 2011I had wanted this book for a long time and they had it at Pages Coffee Bar and Used Bookstore in Conway, MA. What an amazing little bookstore!!! Highly recommend it if you are in the area, it made me happy to patronize them.
August 3, 2007
apparently she wasn't che's girlfriend. what a bunch of lies. and she shares a birthday with me.
March 7, 2008
a very interesting story/fun way to study up on some history, but is questionable at times and can drag on
January 20, 2013
I enjoyed the point of view.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews