Victoria Donda, the author and subject of My Name is Victoria, is the daughter of two activists who were kidnapped and murdered by government forces during Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Known in Argentina as the “Last Military Dictatorship,” this regime was the most brutal of a series of military and authoritarian governments that led Argentina in the later half of the 20th century. Donda was born during her parents’ captivity and given to a conservative family who supported the regime, a fate 500 other Argentine babies shared. The family raised her as their own daughter, re-named Analía. Though she always had an inexplicable fondness for the name “Victoria,” Victoria Donda didn’t learn of her real family or identity until 2003. An association of grandmothers of disappeared children, the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo (an offshoot of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) contacted her after a long investigation. After a photo comparison and, later, a DNA test, the results were undeniable. Donda is now a human rights activist and a legislator in the Argentine National Congress. READ MORE
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| My Name is Victoria: The Extraordinary Story of One Woman’s Struggle to Reclaim her True Identity A memoir by Victoria Donda Translated from the Spanish by Magda Bodin Other Press, 2011 237 pages Reviewed by Erin Becker |
