Customer Reviews

The culture of forgetting: Helen Demidenko and the Holocaust

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Robert Manne is a historian who works at Latrobe University in Melbourne. He has been a person who has normally been associated with the right wing of politics. For a while he was the editor of the far right publication Quadrant. More recently he has become one of the most articulate spokesperons for the Aboriginal Community. He has written some of the best essays published in the country about the Stolen Generation. Manne even to those who may not agree with him is a writer of clarity and simplicity that makes reading his books a delight. His work is always painstakingly researched and one cannot recommend it enough. This book is concerned with a bizarre chapter in Australia's literary history. A prize was set up for new authors. A book called "the hand that wrote the paper" by an author "Helen Demedenko" was submitted for the prize. The book was about a Ukrainian who had been a victim of the Stalinist policy in the Ukraine. As everyone is aware Stalin was responsible for the forced collectivization of the farms in the Ukraine. The peasants in the area retaliated by killing their animals and reducing grain production. Stalin responded by exporting grain at the same rate as had previously occurred despite the short fall and some 3 million Ukrainians starved to death. The hero of the book notices that some of the communist officials who are sent to his area are Jewish. He forms the view that it is he Jews who are behind what happens and when the Germans conquer the area he becomes a collaborator. The war crimes he commits are pay back for what the "Jewish Communists" have done to him. Naturally enough a book with such a theme was seen to be controversial. To be given a major award was seen to be close to rewarding anti sematism. Things however got stranger. The author of the book described herself as a Ukrainian and stated the book although fiction was based on the experiences of her own family. In various promotional activities the author would tell anyone who wanted to listen about Ukrainian folk songs drinking rituals and the like. Most close to the prize thought the reason for the granting of the award was a sort of reverse discrimination based on rewarding Demidenko for being a "Ukrainian writer" rather than for the merit of her work. The controversy however increased when it was found out that Demidenko was in fact not a Ukrainian at all. She was the daughter of a British migrant and that she had put on an elaborate deception. Manne describes the affair and argues passionately about the merit of the original work. His essay is a fascinating insight into a strange part of Australia's literary history.

Manne is a prominent columnist for Australia's top selling broadsheet papers the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. Manne set out to trash the career of a 20 year old novelist from the wrong side of tracks who won Australia's top literary award. The young author was of English descent and adopted a Ukrainian pseudonym,for this heinous sin she had to go. Luckily Manne has never heard of Mark Twain.

Manne arranged for a group of his aging buddies in the Australian "literat" community to dump on the youngster. His buddies included Helen Daniel, Peter Craven (who originally praised the book but reversed himself when the gang whistled) and of course Anne Manne, big bob's talentless wife who got plenty of free kicks when big bob ran Quadrant.

The real problem here is jealousy. A club of over the hill old university mates that run Australia's literat community. Disguising their own lack of talent with political correctness. The young author's crime, showing what everyone who knows anything about East Europe knows. Manne knows nothing but pomposity. His book is [bad].

I agree completely with the previous reviewer except that he is too kind. The book is the sad saga of its author's obsession and in any community where the left had less of a stranglehold on publishing it would not have been published.