True Crimes

Rodolfo Walsh was a tireless investigative journalist who uncovered real political crimes, a writer who felt that ’the concern of the intellectual is by definition the conscience. An intellectual who fails to understand what is happening in his time and in his country is a walking contradiction’. He was in Cuba in 1959, participating in the first revolutionary press service in Latin America, Prensa Latina. When a coded telex arrived in their offices by mistake, Walsh deciphered the plans for the US invasion of Cuba being planned in Guatemala by the CIA. In 1977, on the anniversary of the coup that marked the worst terror ever known in Argentina, Rodolfo Walsh published his “Open Letter from a Writer to the Military Junta”, exposing the torture, disappearance and murder of thousands of citizens by the State. He also accused the military government of economic mismanagement on such a scale that the country would be unable to recover – a prediction that has come true. In return he was gunned down in the streets of Buenos Aires by a military death squad. His books were banned and burned by the military dictatorship. `True Crimes’ is also an anthology of Rodolfo Walsh’s writings, with the best of his journalism, fiction and autobiography; most are the first published translations of his work into English. Three complete short stories are included, among them, “That Woman”, voted best Argentinian story of the twentieth century by prominent writers, critics and publishers in 1999, up against literary giants such as Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar. `True Crimes’ is the first account of his life to be published.