Nora Strejilevich

“When I was young I used to join demonstrations, which is now an activist expression, but if in my youth a man didn’t actually participate in any political organisation, he or she was not considered any activist at all. A terroristic state saw an enemy in anyone with a critical thinking, and selection of victims didn’t quite go according to an exact key. My brother and his girlfriend and even my disappeared cousins were engaged much more than I was. They also could not emigrate so easily as it was perceive as a betrayal or escape amongst activists.”

“I only started writing in Canada, when I attended a course devoted to autobiography. A teacher gave us a choice to write an essay or an autobiography. I chose the latter option and got encouraged to keep writing. So I finished a short autobiography documenting scenes from various moments of my life and also my own genealogy, which I later included into the Single numerous death; but mainly the knowledge that my story creates a part of a much larger process, which goes beyond me encouraged my writing, and the fact it had an impact on all my generation. I consider that essential as I believe, that our society is a society of survivors, as the dictatorship had an impact of each and every one of us.”