Volume 39, Number 20 · December 3, 1992
Self-Portrait of a Revolutionary
By Stephen Kinzer
The Patient Impatience: from boyhood to guerrilla: a personal narrative of Nicaragua's struggle for liberation
by Tomás Borge
Curbstone Press, 452 pp., $24.95
When the Sandinista leader Tomás Borge was a boy in provincial Nicaragua, he formed, he tells us, an intimate bond with a brave and saintly Apache Indian named Winnetou. The Winnetou books, written by the German novelist Karl May, had millions of young readers around the world during the first half of this century. They are tales of an impossibly pure hero, an invincible fighter who is also gentle and kind and who, for his courage, honor, and chivalry, is beloved by all good folk and hated by villains. There is no moral ambiguity in the Winnetou novels; their characters have no complexity or mature emotion. All are either admiring friends of Winnetou's or evil agents of darkness. They live in a simple, clearly defined world that appeals to children.
Review, 2970 words
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