Helen Darville
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Helen Darville (born 7 January 1971) is an Australian journalist and writer. In 1993, Darville won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award for her book The Hand that Signed the Paper. Darville had written the novel under the pseudonym Helen Demidenko while she was studying English Literature at the University of Queensland Brisbane, Australia. The award was for first novels by unpublished Australian writers under 35.
Darville's book described the experiences of Ukrainian brothers who survive Stalinism only to become members of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen death squads and ultimately Australian citizens. Her choice to concentrate on the experience of Ukrainian perpetrators to the exclusion of Jewish victims led later to accusations of anti-Semitism, particularly from members of Australia's Jewish press.
Darville had been living as Darville-Demidenko long before the book was published and increased this impression of ethnicity by speaking of her fictitious Ukrainian background in interviews (her family is of British origin) as a way to protect her sensitive research sources. The novel was widely acclaimed and won various awards including the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal and in 1995 the Miles Franklin Award (the most prestigious literary award in Australia).
After the Miles Franklin, a media furore ensued when it was revealed that the Demidenko identity was false, sparking off personal and professional attacks on the author. These included death threats, accusations of anti-semitism and right wing political associations as well as attempts to thwart her secondary career in journalism where she wrote as Helen Darville. There were also allegations that she plagiarised from numerous books, including:- "The Black Deeds of the Kremlin: a White Book", "The Power and the Glory" and "The Demon Lover".
Critics labelled the novel a hoax and the judges who had granted the awards - based on the quality of the fiction rather than the identity of the author - were ridiculed in the press. The issue continues to inspire a lively debate on identity politics and Australia's long history of identity 'hoaxes' by both writers and artists.
In 1995 Australian culture journal Meanjin published a short story, Pieces of the Puzzle, also by Demidenko although the journal also mentioned that Demidenko had "taken back" her previous name as Darville. She now revealed that she had met Ukrainian witnesses and based the story on them, an admission which subsequently resulted in correspondence from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre demanding she name these possible war criminals.
Darville was later dropped as a columnist for the Brisbane daily, the Courier-Mail in 1997 for using jokes from the "Evil Overlord List" in one column, whilst unaware of their origin. She continued to write freelance features for this and other News Corporation newspapers and magazines.
In 2000 she was again accused of anti-Semitism after an interview in Australian Style magazine with historian and holocaust revisionist David Irving, during his failed libel trial in London.
She has since diffused some antagonism with the Jewish community when she published a post-September 11th article in the Sydney Morning Herald that was seen as pro-American and pro-Israel. The article is archived at Israel Forum and other Israeli news sites.
Having worked as a secondary teacher for several years, Helen Darville has given up writing and now studies Law at the University of Queensland.