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Outlook: Lost and Found: The secret library

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31/08/2023 GMT

Lost and Found: The secret library

BBC World Service - Outlook, Lost and Found: The secret library

Literature hidden from destruction during Argentina’s Dirty War

Persecuted for their ideas by Argentina’s military dictatorship, the Gerchunoff family hid in a secret wall hundreds of blacklisted books, including poetry by Pablo Neruda.

Literature hidden from destruction during Argentina’s Dirty War.

Siblings Luis and Ana Gerchunoff remember a moment of chaos at home: as children, both of them scrambling to gather and conceal their father’s vast library behind a secret wall. It was 1976 when Argentina was under a brutal military dictatorship. Books were blacklisted and burned and people routinely disappeared. Their father was a leftist intellectual – he and his beloved books, which included limited edition poetry by the great Pablo Neruda, were in danger. 

Presenter: Clayton Conn
Producer: Maryam Maruf
Lost & Found theme music by Danny Greenwald

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707

(Photo: Ana and Luis Gerchunoff. Credit: Clayton Conn)

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