Looking for Alicia: The Unfinished Life of an Argentinian Rebel

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Product Details
Price
$30.99  $28.82
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Publish Date
Pages
328
Dimensions
6.51 X 9.35 X 1.21 inches | 1.25 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780190058104

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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 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." -- Debbie Sharnak, Rowan University, H-LatAm

"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 accessible..." -- 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

"Raboy's intimate and moving study illuminates the making of a revolutionary life and age." -- Jennifer Adair, Hispanic American Historical Review