Writing Blog Number 2

20250730 Writing Scandals 3: Helen Demidenko/Darville

Writing Scandals 3: Helen Demidenko/Darville

Schnujo is failing 2 classes asked me about writing scandals. What a great topic!
         Now, I am not going to go and research any. These are ones I know about from university study or personal interest.
         The next one is one I was really invested in when it happened.

Helen Demidenko/ Darville
In 1993, a novel called The Hand That Signed The Paper won Australia’s prestigious Vogel Award for unpublished first novels. Written by a woman named Helen Demidenko, it was a fictionalised account of Ukrainian soldiers in World War II. From the word go, it was controversial as it was seen as anti-Semitic. But that was put down to Demidenko’s Ukrainian heritage, which she played up in interviews and appearances.
         There was a problem, though – Helen Demidenko was not Ukrainian. She was not even a Demidenko. Her real name was Helen Darville, born to ex-pat Brits (she is now Helen Dale, her married name… what is it with her and D-names?) and she did not have a shred of Ukrainian heritage.
         First, the award. While the judges denied it, it was said in literary circles that she only won the award because of her heritage and the fact she was writing about it. Would she have won it if she had just been herself? There are doubts that it would have even been published because of the anti-Semitic themes in the work. But allowances were made because of her cultural upbringing. This brought to light a double standard in the Australian publishing industry which shook up the way books were being selected for publication.
         Don’t get me wrong, Australian publishing still sucks. They just don’t publish based on the person behind the work (with one notable exception concerning members of one group of our society which, truth be told, I don’t mind being given a helping foot up).
         Next, the person. The problem here was not the use of a pseudonym. It was her playing at being Ukrainian in all the media. And when the truth came out, she denied it and doubled down on the subterfuge. That was the issue – she took on a persona that was not “her” in order to sell a book and get it published.
         For what it’s worth, she is now a lawyer.
         I did mention in a previous post that she could have got away with this by calling it creative non-fiction. In reminding myself of the facts in this story, that was brought up by a journalist writing about this and subsequently dismissed – the work is clearly fiction.
         What about the book? Well, it’s not brilliantly written, but it isn’t horrible. It actually reads like someone for whom English is not their first language, but who have been working very hard at being good at it. Technically, it’s very clean. Story-wise, it lacks emotion (to me). Should it have been published? Why not? Jewish people are definitely portrayed in a bad light, but that was the actual belief of people at the time and in the region. Otherwise, it was certainly better than some other Australian books. Should it have won? No, although I don’t know what should have (I entered the prize in 1995 and, clearly, didn’t win).
         But, as a hoax… this shook up the entire Australian literary community, and those reverberations are still being felt to this day.