‘A world-proof life’

Eleanor Dark (1901-1985) is one of Australia's most celebrated writers of the inter-war years. Born with the twentieth century - a Federation baby - she published ten novels, amongst them one of the best loved Australian stories of all time, The Timeless Land. Her life spanned successive global crises - two world wars, the economic depression of the 1930s, the Cold War - each issuing its own challenges to the artist and the people's writer she thought herself to be. By far the most privileged writer of her generation, her ultimate challenge was a personal one: to unlock the gates of her world-proof life to a society and a world in crisis. The first cross-cultural biography of this famous Australian writer, Marivic Wyndham's rich and controversial portrait of Eleanor Dark is based on extensive research of the author's public and private lives

A World Proof Life: Eleanor Dark, a writer in her times, 1901-1985 

Eleanor Dark (1901-1985) is one of Australia's most celebrated writers of the inter-war years. Born with the twentieth century - a Federation baby - she published ten novels, amongst them one of the best loved Australian stories of all time, The Timeless Land. Her life spanned successive global crises - two world wars, the economic depression of the 1930s, the Cold War - each issuing its own challenges to the artist and the people's writer she thought herself to be. By far the most privileged writer of her generation, her ultimate challenge was a personal one: to unlock the gates of her world-proof life to a society and a world in crisis. The first cross-cultural biography of this famous Australian writer, Marivic Wyndham's rich and controversial portrait of Eleanor Dark is based on extensive research of the author's public and private lives

‘A world-proof life’

Eleanor Dark (1901-1985) is one of Australia's most celebrated writers of the inter-war years. Born with the twentieth century - a Federation baby - she published ten novels, amongst them one of the best loved Australian stories of all time, The Timeless Land. Her life spanned successive global crises - two world wars, the economic depression of the 1930s, the Cold War - each issuing its own challenges to the artist and the people's writer she thought herself to be. By far the most privileged writer of her generation, her ultimate challenge was a personal one: to unlock the gates of her world-proof life to a society and a world in crisis. The first cross-cultural biography of this famous Australian writer, Marivic Wyndham's rich and controversial portrait of Eleanor Dark is based on extensive research of the author's public and private lives

Narrow but Endlessly Deep: The Struggle for Memorialisation in Chile Since the Transition to Democracy

On 11 September 1973, the Chilean Chief of the Armed Forces, Augusto Pinochet, overthrew the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende and installed a military dictatorship. By 1990, when Pinochet stood down after an unsuccessful referendum to legitimate himself, the danger to conservative Chile had passed. The country was uneasy but stable, and the possibility of a second Cuba remote. The victory of the right had come at a heavy price to the small nation. By 1990, beginning what is known in Chile as the Transition to Democracy, Chilean society was severely traumatised. This book traces the attempts of survivors, their families, descendants and supporters to memorialise the experiences of torture, terror and state murder at seven infamous Sites of Conscience, all within Santiago. For everyone it has been a hard and bitter journey, and one by no means complete

The Cemetery, the State and the Exiles: A Study of Cementerio Colón, Havana, and Woodlawn Cemetery, Miami

One of the unsuspected costs of exile is the inability to care for the family tombs for which, especially in Latin American countries, one may feel a sharp personal responsibility. The desecration of such tombs renders the pain of exile sharper still. We examine the ways in which the Cuban State has abandoned responsibility for the care of the tombs of the exiles in the island’s largest cemetery, Cementerio Cristóbal Colón in Havana. 
 
 Many exiles hope and plan to return to resume life in their former birthland. Perhaps to show their intentions, their cemeteries in the new countries are piecemeal and temporary. Little by little it becomes apparent that their state of exile has passed from medium term to long term to permanence. In Woodlawn Cemetery, Miami, some of the exiles’ dead remain in unworthy graves while the inscriptions on their tombs remind their descendants of the promise of permanent return which they never now will keep

Sin Descansar, En Mi Memoria

"En el once de septiembre de 1973, el Jefe de las Fuerzas Armadas de Chile, Augusto Pinochet, derrocó al gobierno del Partido de la Unidad Popular de Salvador Allende e instaló una dictadura militar. Sin embargo, este no es un libro de partidos e ideologías políticas, pero una historia pública. Se enfoca en los memoriales y conmemoraciones en siete sitios de tortura, exterminio y desaparición en Santiago de Chile. Se entablan debates universales del por qué y cómo los actos de violencia infligidos por un Estado contra sus propios ciudadanos deben ser recordados, y por quiénes. Los sitios investigados – incluso el nefasto caso del Estadio Nacional – son entre los más simbólicos de más de mil de tales sitios por todo el país. Este estudio vislumbra la profundidad de los sentimientos que los sobrevivientes y las familias de los detenidos desaparecidos y los ejecutados políticos arrastran en cada uno de estos sitios. Este libro sigue sus luchas para conmemorar a cada uno, y así revela lentamente sus sentimientos: su idealismo, esperanza, coraje, frustración, odio, emoción, resentimiento, tristeza, división y desilusión.

The Bay of Pigs: Revisiting Two Museums

The Museum of Playa Giron (the Bay of Pigs) in the region of Cienega De Zapata, Cuba, celebrates the repulse of Brigade 2506 as the first reverse of US imperialism on the American continents. The equivalent Brigade 2506 Museum in Miami, dedicated to and maintained by the members of Brigade 2506, celebrates defeat at the Bay of Pigs as moral victory for the Cuban exiles. The forces were indeed implacable foes. Yet between the museums can be detected some curious similarities. Both present the common theme of the confrontation between forces of good and evil. Both celebrate the philosophy that dying for one’s country is the greatest good a citizen may achieve. Both museums fly the common Cuban flag. Both museums identify a common enemy: the United States of America. This article, by comparing the displays in the two museums, analyses some cultural elements of what, despite decades of separation, in some ways remains a common Cuban culture

Sin Descansar, En Mi Memoria

"En el once de septiembre de 1973, el Jefe de las Fuerzas Armadas de Chile, Augusto Pinochet, derrocó al gobierno del Partido de la Unidad Popular de Salvador Allende e instaló una dictadura militar. Sin embargo, este no es un libro de partidos e ideologías políticas, pero una historia pública. Se enfoca en los memoriales y conmemoraciones en siete sitios de tortura, exterminio y desaparición en Santiago de Chile. Se entablan debates universales del por qué y cómo los actos de violencia infligidos por un Estado contra sus propios ciudadanos deben ser recordados, y por quiénes. Los sitios investigados – incluso el nefasto caso del Estadio Nacional – son entre los más simbólicos de más de mil de tales sitios por todo el país. Este estudio vislumbra la profundidad de los sentimientos que los sobrevivientes y las familias de los detenidos desaparecidos y los ejecutados políticos arrastran en cada uno de estos sitios. Este libro sigue sus luchas para conmemorar a cada uno, y así revela lentamente sus sentimientos: su idealismo, esperanza, coraje, frustración, odio, emoción, resentimiento, tristeza, división y desilusión.