On 20 October in Melbourne, I had the satisfaction, as one of the judges of the Victorian Premier's Prize for First Fiction, of not giving the award to a young writer who has perpetrated one of the greatest frauds in Australia's rich history of literary hoaxes and deceptions. Before she was exposed, Helen Demidenko, as she styled herself (Helen Darville as she in fact is), might have seemed to be one of the favourites for the prize; indeed, the press was understandably anxious to know whether we had intended shortlisting the book, and only withdrawn it under pressure. In fact, we had determined weeks before the Demidenko affair reached its final phase to give the prize to Richard Flanagan, for his magical-realist investigation of Tasmania's history, The Death of a River Guide.

LRB 16 November 1995 | PDF Download