The Hand That Signed The Paper by Helen Demidenko.
Published: St. Leonards, N.S.W. : Allen & Unwin
1994.
Australian author,
Helen Demidenko -- real name Helen Darville - won the prestigious Miles
Franklin prize for this novel, which was later found to be hoax. The book is
told from the point of view of Ukrainian peasant Kateryna. She along with brothers Vitali and
Evheny witness the destruction of the family’s village by Stalinist communists
during World War II and side with the Nazis who they hail as liberators.
Demidenko who had claimed to be of Ukrainian background later recanted this and
the claim that she had based the book on her family's history.
Sources
Cover image: Goodreads
Citation: Novelist
Annotation: Goodreads, Literature resource centre, Fantastic Fiction and Amazon
I bought that book a couple of years ago after hearing about this fraud. Heven't had time to read it yet... I may read it this summer. Fiction is fiction, though. Does the book say something like "based on a true story"? Or was there a false declaration by the author? If not, I don't understand why would anyone think it should be true only because it's written in first-person.
ReplyDeleteHey Laura,
ReplyDeleteIt's a pretty complicated case. From what I've read, the main issue came from the Author claiming to be of Ukrainian heritage, which turned out to be false. She used this false identity to lend credibility to her writing.
The book was promoted as historical fact, yet what she presented was grossly inaccurate. On top of all this, there are accusations of plagarism, anti-semitism and moral irresponsibility.
I haven't read the book myself, but I find the case really interesting. Here is a great article written by Malcolm Knox 10 years after the scandal: http://www.smh.com.au/news/books/the-darville-made-me-do-it/2005/07/08/1120704550613.html