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'The brothers Kovalenko...did not kill Jews just because they were poor and Ukrainian, and did not know any better. They killed Jews because they believed that they themselves were savages.'
'The Hand that Signed the Paper tells the story of Vitaly, a Ukrainian peasant, who endures the destruction of his village and family by Stalin's communism. He welcomes the Nazi invasion in 1941 and willingly enlists in the SS Death Squads to take a horrifying revenge against those he perceives to be his persecutors.
'This remarkable novel, a shocking story of the hatred that gives evil life, is also an eloquent plea for peace and justice.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
- Editorial [Aurealis : Australian Fantasy and Science Fiction no.16, December 1996] single work criticism
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Unreliable Narrators
2018
single work
column
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , June 2018;'Recent scandals in Australian non-fiction have highlighted publishers’ responsibilities not only to their readers but to their authors’ subjects. But is a failure of fact-checking solely to blame? Or are there further hidden risks in the way these revelations are reported?' (Introduction)
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The Culture Wars in the Demidenko Affair
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: A History of Australian Literary Criticism 2016; (p. 438-449) -
Reshaping the Holocaust : Australian Fiction, an Australian Past, and the Reconfiguration of 'Traditional' Holocaust Narratives
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Holocaust Studies : A Journal of Culture and History , vol. 22 no. 1 2016; (p. 65-83)'This article argues that some Australian fiction promotes a unique stance in regards to the Holocaust and the Third Reich. Reading Helen Demidenko/Darville's The Hand that Signed the Paper and James McQueen's White Light, I show that a cultural naivety exists in Australia, forged due to historical and cultural influences played out since the Second World War. These factors have influenced the country's memorialization of, and responses to, the Holocaust and the period's ensuing after-effects, as exampled in these two pieces of Australian fiction.'
Source: Abstract.
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Teaching Australian Multicultural Literature
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Teaching Australian and New Zealand Literature 2016; (p. 77-86)'Multiculturalism, introduced in Australia after the Whitlam Labor Government came to power in 1972, represented a significant shift in government policy. The White Australia policy, introduced on federation in 1901, had effectively barred non-white immigration for the last seventy years of the young nation’s history, and twenty-three years of unbroken conservative rule ensured that the nation retained its cultural identity as British, despite the large numbers of non-British and non-English speaking migrants who arrived after the Second World War. Multiculturalism, initially a policy framework focusing on issues of social justice affecting Australia’s postwar migrant communities, gradually entered other fields, and the 1980s saw vigorous debates about its place in the area of cultural production. In recent decades, the Australian nation has become increasingly diverse both ethnically and linguistically, but we have also seen a backlash against the policy of multiculturalism in some segments of the population. Multicultural literature, generally defined as writing by Australian writers of non-indigenous, ethnic minority background, has often found itself at the center of heated debates about cultural and literary legitimacy, debates that inevitably have affected how literature is studied and taught in Australian schools and universities. Ironically, the very fact that this writing has come to embody so many of the tensions and contradictions in contemporary Australian culture makes it an ideal teaching tool : as a reflection of social and cultural relations, as a catalyst for discussion of how cultural production is framed and received, as a lightning rod for paradoxes surrounding writing from cultural minorities in national and global contexts.’ (Introduction)
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Two Sides to the Story : For
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 13-14 December 2003; (p. 14)
— Review of The Hand that Signed the Paper 1994 single work novel -
Two Sides to the Story : Against
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 13-14 December 2003; (p. 14)
— Review of The Hand that Signed the Paper 1994 single work novel -
Assassins of Memory
1995
single work
review
— Appears in: Arena Magazine , August/September no. 18 1995; (p. 44-48)
— Review of The Hand that Signed the Paper 1994 single work novel -
Back in the USSR
1994
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 53 no. 4 1994; (p. 765-767)
— Review of The Hand that Signed the Paper 1994 single work novel -
Courageous Writing
1994
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 27 August 1994; (p. wkd 6)
— Review of The Hand that Signed the Paper 1994 single work novel -
The Demidenko Affair and Contemporary Holocaust Fiction
2000
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Holocaust and the Text : Speaking the Unspeakable 2000; (p. 125-141) -
Tautological Modernity : Democracy, Magic and Racism in the Demidenko-Darville Affair
2002
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Cultural Studies Review , May vol. 8 no. 1 2002; (p. 72-92) -
Jews and Forgiveness
1996
single work
correspondence
— Appears in: Quadrant , October vol. 40 no. 10 1996; (p. 4-5) -
Untitled
1996
single work
correspondence
— Appears in: Quadrant , October vol. 40 no. 10 1996; (p. 5-6) -
The Fabrication of Ukrainian-Australian Identity by Helen Darville
2003
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Complicities : Connections and Divisions : Perspectives on Literatures and Cultures of the Asia-Pacific Region 2003; (p. 215-222) Discusses Darville's literary hoax in the context of Ukrainian-Australian writers and writing.
Awards
- 1995 winner ASAL Awards — ALS Gold Medal
- 1995 winner Miles Franklin Literary Award
- 1993 winner The Australian / Vogel National Literary Award (for an unpublished manuscript)
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cUkraine,ccFormer Soviet Union,cEastern Europe, Europe,
- Brisbane, Queensland,
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cPoland,cEastern Europe, Europe,
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cPoland,cEastern Europe, Europe,
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cUkraine,ccFormer Soviet Union,cEastern Europe, Europe,
- 1939-1945
- 1940s
- 1990s