AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE - THE DEMIDENKO AFFAIR

Top 2. Sep 16, 2000 5:14 PM

» Hedwig - Demidenko Affair

Hi Bucky

No, Helen didn't exercise a lot of judgement when she wrote this book or else she didn't think ahead about the storm that would break over her head.

I was interested in reading the book because I grew up knowing some Ukrainian families and I heard stories that weren't public knowledge in Australia about famines.

Read the book and see what you think of it.

-- posted by Hedwig

Top 3. Apr 2, 2001 12:57 PM

» melrichards - Re: Who would anticipate...

In response to message posted by BuckyRea:

That ethnic rationalism would make a novel about a history other than your own, unpublishable in Australia at the time...

That your first editor would take her report to her political cronies BEFORE the publisher who had employed her...

That people would fail to notice that novels tend to be fictional... (her quote about 'faction' was made ONCE)

That readers couldn't tell the difference between the opinions of a character and the opinions of an author...

That a fellow female writer who didn't like your novel would attempt to sabotage your entire writing career by phoning all her cronies in the australian newspaper industry imploring them not to publish any of your freelance work...

That your novel would be shamelessly exploited by the Jewish Lobby (when it has almost nothing to do with Jews)... Or that they would still be pursuing your professional reputation eight years later

http://www.geocities.com/fairfax_are_yel... has the reaction to her David Irving interview last year (and debunks it thoroughly).

As a 22 year old undergraduate, would YOU have expected the reaction? I didn't, and I was priviliged to read the manuscript before it was entered in for the Vogel!

-- posted by melrichards

Top 4. Apr 7, 2001 8:08 AM

» Hedwig - Re: Re: Who would anticipate...

In response to message posted by melrichards:

Hi, Mel

I read your interesting post and I have been reading the Fairfax Are Yellow website. Very interesting, I didn't know about the David Irving interview. I haven't read any of David Irving's writings. But I am interested in anything by Helen and what she is doing.

I am sorry that she hasn't written any more novels, because she is very talented. But the way she got attacked unfairly for her first novel,I am not surprised. But I hope she does go back to novel writing.

I wish they would read what she writes before they jump on her.

Joanna

-- posted by Hedwig

Top 5. Apr 12, 2001 6:34 PM

» melrichards - Re: Re: Re: Who would anticipate...

In response to message posted by Hedwig:

Unfortunately they seem to have the talent to read only what she HASN'T written (ie. anything vaguely anti-semetic or racist).

In fact Fairfax group newspapers have recently admitted that they do have a policy of refusing to publish ANYTHING she writes as they are content that she IS anti-semetic.

If you like Fairfax Are Yellow, feel free to nominate the site to your favourite search engine. It's gone up on most of them at one time or antoher then disappears within a month (interestingly).

-- posted by melrichards

Top 6. Apr 16, 2001 1:28 AM

» Hedwig - Re: Re: Re: Re: Who would anticipate...

In response to message posted by melrichards:

Hi, Mel

I hope you had a good Easter break and a happy and blessed Easter.

What!? Fairfax has a policy of refusing to publish anything she writes? That is ridiculous!

Why because those who are truly anti-semitic have taken The Hand that Signed The Paper the wrong way and claimed Helen as one of them? Actually, when I thought about it, the fact that she wrote that book should have given it away that she was not Ukrainian because I know of no one who is Ukrainian or of Ukrainian descent who talks about these things openly, only amongst themselves or others "who were on the wrong side of the war". And then only the older generation who went through this time.

A couple weeks ago I say a show, I think it was on SBS, about Stalin and the Ukrainian famines. It was shocking. They showed footage that I have never seen before of men, women and children lying dead in the streets, looking like the starvation victims we have seen in Ethiopia and other countries. Stalin was a truly evil man. It is hard to say who was worse, Hitler or Stalin.

The fact is that Ukrainians and Latvians fought with the Germans, not because they were Nazis but because they hated the Russians more because they had treated them worse.

Helen captured very well the undercurrents in Europe at that time.

I think I'll keep checking Fairfax are Yellow. Are you and the people who put this site up journalists and members of MEAA - AJA division?

Joanna

-- posted by Hedwig

Top 7. Aug 15, 2001 3:57 PM

» melrichards - Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Who would anticipate...

In response to message posted by Hedwig:

Hi Joanna,

Sorry I've not been back to check this site for several months. It is now August and I am in the process of doing a major rewrite of Fairfax Are Yellow which should be complete by September.

I have been a journalist in the UK but not a union member. My other sources I'm afraid, will need to remain anonymous. In fact if you put my name into a search engine you'll find a rather inane critique of my professionalism by David Greason of the Australia/Israel review. I was the twerp that sent Helen the 'evil overlord' jokes that got her called a plagiarist again. (Apparently, if you are a columnist all your jokes have to be entirely original creations.)

There's nothing quite like a former skin head taking the moral high ground over you for entertainment value but he didn't represent my work accurately and when I wrote a corrective letter to the magazine they cut the line pointing out 'normally I write for computer magazines'. Helen is a sideline because we were friends at Uni.

I spent an entire 6 months working as staffwriter for a paranormal magazine with Uri Geller, but Greason exclusively referred it as evidence of the kind of journalist I was and cited a conspiracy feature I did on The Brotherhood of the Masters to make me sound like an anti-semetic conspiracy nut. That's on the web somewhere too if you want to read what I ACTUALLY wrote.

You might be interested that the Courier Mail (for which Helen continues to write) has recently published an article on her major critic Robert Manne proving that he's been lying through his teeth about almost everyone he's criticised. I can't WAIT to get a copy for Fairfax!!!

-- posted by melrichards