The life and legacy of a young Argentinian woman whose disappearance in 1976 haunts those she left behind Marc Raboy always felt a "subliminal interest" in Argentina. His grandfather had left his village in Ukraine in 1908 as a young man and spent a year in Buenos Aires, before returning home, marrying, and then emigrating to Canada, where Raboy was raised. While planning a trip of his own to Argentina, Raboy did an Internet search of his surname there, on the off-chance that he might discover some tie to his grandfather. In the process he found Alicia Raboy. Her story immediately seized him and wouldn't let him go. In June 1976, Alicia, a journalist and member of a militant underground leftwing group, the Montoneros, was ambushed by a security death squad while driving with her family in the city of Mendoza. Alicia's partner, the celebrated poet and fellow Montonero Francisco "Paco" Urondo, was killed on the spot. Their 11-month-old daughter, Ángela, was taken and placed in an orphanage. Her daughter ultimately was rescued; Alicia was never heard from again. In Looking for Alicia, Raboy pursues her story not simply to learn what happened when the post-Perón government in Argentina turned to state terror, but to understand what drove Alicia and others to risk their lives to oppose it. Whatever their distant ancestral kinship, author and subject were born a month apart, sharing not only a surname but youthful rebellion, journalistic ambition, and the radical politics that were a hallmark of the 1960s everywhere. Their destinies diverged through a combination of choice and circumstance. Using family archives, interviews with those who knew Alicia, and transcripts from the 2011 trial of former Argentine security forces personnel involved in her disappearance, Raboy reassembles Alicia's story. He supplements his narrative with documents from Argentina's attempts to deal with the legacy of the military dictatorship, such as the 1984 report of the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons, Nunca Más ("Never Again"), as well as secret diplomatic correspondence recently made public through the U.S. State Department's Argentina Declassification Project. Looking for Alicia immerses readers in these dark years, which, decades later, cast their shadow still. It puts an unforgettably human face to the many thousands who disappeared, those they left behind, and the haunting power of the memories that bind us all to them.
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The biography of a radical young idealist, her determination to make a difference in the world, and her disappearance in 1976, revealing the human cost and undying legacy of Argentina's descent into rightwing madness.
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Looking for Alicia is an impressive work of biography. Marc is thorough in tracking down every possible angle. He reviews newspapers, court documents, and Alicia's writing and interviews a wide array of friends, family members, acquaintances, old lovers, classmates, and people present at the location of her disappearance. It is also in part an intellectual history of Alicia...In addition to its readability for a wide range of audiences, Looking for Alicia makes several key interventions in the historiography of the period.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780190058104
Publisert
2022
Utgiver
Vendor
Oxford University Press Inc
Vekt
567 gr
Høyde
165 mm
Bredde
237 mm
Dybde
31 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
328

Forfatter

Biographical note

Marc Raboy is Beaverbrook Professor Emeritus in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University. He is the author or editor of some twenty books, including Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World (Oxford University Press), which was a finalist for both the Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction and the RBC Taylor Prize. He lives in Montreal.