Winner, 2022 Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction
Finalist, 2024 Jewish Public Library Jacob Isaac Segal Award

The biography of a radical young idealist, her determination to make a difference in the world, and her disappearance in 1976, revealing the human cost and undying legacy of Argentina’s descent into rightwing madness.
It started with a coincidence — when Marc Raboy happened to discover that he shared a surname with a young left-wing Argentinian journalist who in 1976 was ambushed by a right-wing death squad while driving with her family. Alicia’s partner was killed on the spot, and their baby daughter was taken and placed in an orphanage. The child was ultimately rescued, but Alicia was never heard from again.

In Looking for Alicia, Raboy pursues her story not only to learn what happened when the post-Perón government in Argentina turned to state terror but also to understand the lives of those who risked everything to oppose it. Author and subject share more than a surname and a distant ancestral connection; their lives were both marked by youthful rebellion, journalistic ambition, and the radical politics that were a hallmark of the ’60s and ’70s.

Raboy reassembles Alicia’s story using family archives, interviews with those who knew her, secret diplomatic correspondence recently made public by the U.S. State Department, and transcripts from the trial of former Argentine security forces personnel involved in her disappearance. Examining Alicia’s and his own different choices and circumstances, he attempts to discover how their lives diverged — and what drives people like Alicia to face death in the pursuit of their ideals.

MARC RABOY is Beaverbrook Professor Emeritus in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University. He has been a visiting scholar at Stockholm University, the University of Oxford, New York University, and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Raboy is the author or editor of some twenty books, including Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World, finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction, the RBC Taylor Prize, and the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. He lives in Montreal.

Marc Raboy's profile page

• Short-listed, Jewish Public Library Jacob Isaac Segal Award
• Winner, The Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction

"[Raboy] thoroughly details the political turmoil that existed in Argentina for much of the 20th century, including six military coups that took place between 1930 and 1976 … Raboy links Argentina’s bloody history to the real lives of Alicia, Urondo and their families, but the book also contains detailed information on the country’s political history." — Winnipeg Free Press

"Looking for Alicia is an important book. In giving a face and a name to one principled victim of the ‘Dirty War,’ it memorializes all of them. It is a stark reminder that there are moral choices to be made. Like Alicia, eventually we all must decide which side we are on." — Jewish Book Council

"What had begun as a pleasant vacation and a casual genealogical interest suddenly became the impetus for an in-depth investigation … are the Argentinian Raboys long-lost relatives? The reader will find out, but more important than blood kinship for Marc Raboy is the irreparable bond he has forged with them." — Canadian Jewish News

"By telling the tale of one person’s political awakening — her commitment, her energy and optimism, and her fate Marc Raboy makes a distant and dismal period of violence and fear accessible." — Literary Review of Canada

"In sketching the outlines of Alicia’s story, Raboy points us to other mysteries of Argentina’s 1970s and ’80s — thousands of them — still waiting to be solved." — Foreword

"Raboy’s book is an effort to recover something more than the bare-bones official story … it is an attempt to reconstruct the life of a woman who was killed by the state for her radical politics. Attempting this, difficult or impossible as it is, humanizes the victims of the dictatorship and reminds us that though they may be called desaparecidos, they did not disappear — they were killed by their fellow Argentines for what they believed in." — Jacobin

"Looking for Alicia is beautifully written and based on meticulous research." — Canadian Journal of Communication

"Looking for Alicia is an unfortunate and stark symbol of the way women’s lives and stories are seen as inconsequential, as vessels for amplifying the lives of people around them. Years later, the publication of this book at a time where the rights of women are under attack feels like a chilling comparison to our current climate." — White Wall Review