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 It started with a coincidence--when Marc Raboy happened to discover that he shared a surname with a young leftwing Argentinian journalist who in June 1976 was ambushed by a rightwing death squad while driving with her family in the city of Mendoza. Alicia's partner, the celebrated poet and fellowMontonero Francisco "Paco" Urondo, was killed on the spot. Their baby daughter was taken and placed in an orphanage. Her daughter ultimately rescued but 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. Author and subject share not only a surname--a distant ancestral connection--but youthful rebellion, journalistic ambition, and the radical politics that were a hallmark of the
1960s. Their destinies diverged through a combination of choice and circumstance. Using family archives, interviews with those who knew her, 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 the years of the so-called "Dirty War," which, decades later, cast their shadow still. It also gives an unforgettably human face to the many thousands who disappeared during that dark era, those they left behind, and the power of the memories that bind them.
Product Details
Price
$27.95
$25.99
Publisher
Oxford University Press, USA
Publish Date
April 01, 2022
Pages
320
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) as well as a number of articles. He lives in
Montreal.
Reviews
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