Looking for Alicia: The Unfinished Life of an Argentinian Rebel
Marc Raboy
(Author)
Description
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.
Product Details
Price
$29.99
$27.89
Publisher
Oxford University Press, USA
Publish Date
April 01, 2022
Pages
328
Dimensions
6.51 X 9.35 X 1.21 inches | 1.25 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780190058104
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
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.
Reviews
"Looking for Alicia shows us the way that the loss of history and trauma can cross generations. How the parents who are forgotten, the mothers who are forgotten, leave a piece of themselves in the children they've raised. It isn't just a loss of history; it's a loss of one's self." -- Emily Mackey, White Wall Review
"By telling the tale of one person's political awakening - her commitment, her energy and optimism, and her fate - Marc Raboy makes a distant and dismal period of violence and fear accessibleEL" -- John Baglow, Literary Review of Canada
"[Raboy] thoroughly details the political turmoil that existed in Argentina for much of the 20th century, including six military coups that took place between 1930 and 1976... Raboy links Argentina's bloody history to the real lives of Alicia, Urondo and their families, but the book also contains detailed information on the country's political history." -- Andrea Geary, Winnipeg Free Press
"There is something profound in Looking for Alicia's reproduction of that sense of lacking, of searching for someone who cannot be recovered. Shining a light on the pain and loss, so deep and permanent, suffered by Alicia, her family, and her comrades on the part of the Argentine government reframes the tragedy of the state's mass murder of tens of thousands. Imagine what the world would be like with more people like Alicia in it, if the dreams and love of those comrades had not been stolen from us all." -- Craig Johnson, Jacobin
"Marc Raboy's Looking for Alicia recounts a history of fascism through the story of a single murder victim... It's an informative book... written with clarity and conviction." -- Julia M. Klein, Forward
"Looking for Alicia is an important book. In giving a face and a name to one principled victim of the "Dirty War," it memorializes all of them." -- Angus Smith, Jewish Books Council
"Marc Raboy's personal journey of discovery takes the reader into the terror of Argentina's 1970s military dictatorship. Rich in anecdote and authoritative political history, this riveting work of remembrance combines thorough research with the pacing of a cracking good novel." -- Christopher Neal, author of The Rebel Scribe: Carleton Beals and the Progressive Challenge to US Policy in Latin America
"Marc Raboy's investigation into the disappearance of Argentine journalist and social activist, Alicia Raboy, succeeds in many ways. As a personal memoir, it uncovers surprising family links (Marc and Alicia are distantly related). As a political essay, it delves into the nature of repressive and democratic governments. As a page-turning story, it sweeps away the dust around a decades-old mystery. As a cautionary tale, it warns of the consequences that idealistic youth inevitably face in their zeal to confront corrupt powers that be. As a moral treatise, it posits that the search for justice is an obligation that continues long after unpunished crimes were committed." -- Quebec Writers' Federation, Winner, The Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction, Jury citation
"In taking us with him on his dogged search for Alicia, Raboy brings us back to one of the darkest chapters in Argentinian history, which still haunts the country to this day. Alicia's story is the story of too many Argentinians, which Raboy brings to life in this thoroughly engrossing account." -- Peter Andreas, Brown University, author of Rebel Mother: My Childhood Chasing the Revolution
