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'A contemporary artist is out to win a portrait prize by sketching a Che Guevara rebel from the old Australian colony in Paraguay. The artist’s brother is troubled by doubts about the rebel’s heroic identity and feels obliged to investigate.
'Set largely in South America, the novel explores divergent approaches to the truth in the wilds of Bolivia where Che sought to ignite a widespread revolution. The investigation ends in Sydney where Che’s ambitious dreams are still revered and the prize will soon be awarded. The counter-factual mysteries to be unravelled mirror South America’s own ingenious literary form, magic realism, a form reflecting the post-modern world’s richly-imagined but often bizarre perceptions.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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The Laredo Mystery
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Quadrant , September vol. 67 no. 9 2023; (p. 91-92)
— Review of Che's Last Embrace 2022 single work novel 'Pivotal to Che’s Last Embrace, Nicholas Hasluck’s fourteenth novel, is the marvellously elusive figure of Marvic Laredo. Descended from a group of Australians with utopian dreams who settled in Paraguay in the 1890s, Laredo, as one of the “boy soldiers” in the Chaco War between that country and Bolivia (1932 to 1935), had gained the moniker “el Australiano”. More importantly, Hasluck assigns him the role of propagandist and journalist for Che Guevara during the attempt to radicalise Latin America during the 1960s. Further to this, we are told that thirty years after Guevara’s ultimate ambush and subsequent death at the Bolivian village of La Higuera in 1967, Laredo had written a commemorative article devoted to the revolutionary leader. There also exists an unpublished draft of his account of Guevara’s last days and final hours. This is of particular interest since it suggests a revolutionary force weakened and divided. It also hints at betrayal.' (Introduction)
-
The Laredo Mystery
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Quadrant , September vol. 67 no. 9 2023; (p. 91-92)
— Review of Che's Last Embrace 2022 single work novel 'Pivotal to Che’s Last Embrace, Nicholas Hasluck’s fourteenth novel, is the marvellously elusive figure of Marvic Laredo. Descended from a group of Australians with utopian dreams who settled in Paraguay in the 1890s, Laredo, as one of the “boy soldiers” in the Chaco War between that country and Bolivia (1932 to 1935), had gained the moniker “el Australiano”. More importantly, Hasluck assigns him the role of propagandist and journalist for Che Guevara during the attempt to radicalise Latin America during the 1960s. Further to this, we are told that thirty years after Guevara’s ultimate ambush and subsequent death at the Bolivian village of La Higuera in 1967, Laredo had written a commemorative article devoted to the revolutionary leader. There also exists an unpublished draft of his account of Guevara’s last days and final hours. This is of particular interest since it suggests a revolutionary force weakened and divided. It also hints at betrayal.' (Introduction)
Last amended 10 Feb 2023 13:38:22
Subjects:
-
cParaguay,cSouth America, Americas,
- Sydney, New South Wales,
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