CUBA HAS PUBLISHED new diaries penned by iconic revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, written while he was leading the campaign that brought Fidel Castro to power.

The collection, named Diary of a Combatant, deals with the period from 1956 to 1958 and was unveiled in Havana yesterday, the Guardian reports. Guevara’s widow, Aleida March, and his two daughters attended in order t0 “acknowledge his thoughts, life and work”.

March took the decision to have the diaries published unedited, saying that she wanted readers see him as he had been, the BBC reports.

The book’s publishers said the process of getting the diaries onto the shelves was a long one – because Guevara’s handwriting was so poor it took great deal of time than usual to decipher it. The finished product, however, shows the reader “Che Guevara’s impressions of Cuba, its culture, identity and political context”, they say.

The Argentine-born revolutionary was killed in Bolivia in 1967 during a guerrilla military campaign.