Lost and Found: The secret library
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)
Last on
Broadcasts
- Thu 31 Aug 2023 11:06GMTÂ鶹Éç World Service
- Thu 31 Aug 2023 17:06GMTÂ鶹Éç World Service except East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa
- Thu 31 Aug 2023 21:06GMTÂ鶹Éç World Service East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa only
- Fri 1 Sep 2023 02:06GMTÂ鶹Éç World Service
Featured in...
Lost and Found—Outlook
From a space probe to a slipper, remarkable stories of lives shaped by discovery and loss