Helen Dale

Helen Dale (born Helen Darville; 1972) is an Australian writer and lawyer. She is best known for writing The Hand That Signed the Paper, a novel about a Ukrainian family who collaborated with the Nazis in the Holocaust, under the pseudonym Helen Demidenko.

A daughter of British immigrants, Dale was educated at Redeemer Lutheran College in Rochedale, a suburb of Brisbane. While studying English literature at the University of Queensland, she wrote The Hand That Signed the Paper, an award-winning novel that was subject to controversy. After teaching, Dale returned to university, gaining her law degree in 2005. She later did post-graduate law study at Oxford and completed an LLM degree in 2012 at the University of Edinburgh.

Dale was a senior adviser to David Leyonhjelm, a Libertarian Party member of the Australian Senate. She makes regular editorial contributions to right-wing media outlets.

Early life and education

A daughter of British immigrants, Dale was educated at Redeemer Lutheran College in Rochedale, a suburb of Brisbane. She has claimed that her father was Ukrainian and her mother Irish.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>

Dale wrote in the Australian Skeptic magazine that, in the aftermath of her novel's controversy Template:Ca 2000, she lived in London for two years, teaching and playing sports.<ref>Template:Cite web}}</ref> She returned to the University of Queensland in 2002 to study law, and after graduating in 2005 became an associate to Peter Dutney at the Supreme Court of Queensland.<ref name="Dale-2006">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Dale completed the Bachelor of Civil Law programme at the University of Oxford in 2008,<ref name="Skeptic-Lawyer-About">Template:Cite web</ref> after which she studied for an MPhil in law.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She completed a graduate law degree at the Edinburgh Law School in 2012.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref>

Other literary work

In 1995, Dale published the short story "Pieces of the Puzzle" in the Australian culture journal Meanjin. The byline was 'Demidenko', although the journal noted that by the time of publication, the author had changed her legal name back to 'Darville'.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The first book of Dale's duology Kingdom of the Wicked, Rules, came out in 2017, and the second, Order, in 2018. It is a reimagining of the trial of Jesus Christ at the hands of Pontius Pilate in a technologically sophisticated Roman Empire.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

David Irving interview

In 2000, Dale was again accused of antisemitism after interviewing David Irving, a Holocaust denier, for Australian Style magazine during a libel trial in London that was decided against him.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Robert Manne criticized Dale's sympathy for Irving in The Age.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Editorials

Dale was a columnist with the Brisbane daily newspaper The Courier-Mail.<ref name="Dale-2006" /> She was dismissed for plagiarism after copying jokes originally from the "Evil Overlord list".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She continued to write commentaries for News Corp and the Fairfax.

In 2017, an investigation by BuzzFeed revealed that Dale had also plagiarised a number of social media posts in her Twitter and Facebook feeds.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Dale has contributed to The Spectator Australia,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> to the libertarian magazine Reason,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and to Quillette.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She was a regular contributor to the libertarian group blog Catallaxy Files,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> under the name 'skepticlawyer'. She then created her own blog of the same name.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She also published commentaries on her newsletter Not on Your Team, but Always Fair.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Politics

Dale identifies as a libertarian.<ref name="Skeptic-Lawyer-About" /> In 2014, she became a senior adviser to David Leyonhjelm, a Libertarian member of the Australian Senate.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She resigned during the election campaign in 2016.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> During her tenure, she wrote posts on her socials against renewables.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Right-wing organizations

Dale has been listed as an author at CapX, <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> owned and produced by the Centre for Policy Studies. She has also been listed as a contributor to libertarianism.org,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> from the Cato Institute, and to Law and Liberty,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> from the Liberty Fund.

She has been made a fellow at the Civitas Institute,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which merged with the John Locke Foundation in 2020.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She has also been listed at the Centre for Independent Studies,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> an Australian think tank.

Dale is listed on the page of the John Locke Institute faculty,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> where she says she has "consulted".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Awards

In 1993, The Hand That Signed the Paper won the Australian/Vogel Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It won the Miles Franklin Award when published in 1994<ref name="Manne">Template:Cite book</ref> and the 1995 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal when re-published under Dale's real name.<ref name="Manne" />

In 2012, Dale won the Law Society of Scotland's student essay competition, writing on the topic of same-sex marriage.<ref name="journalonline">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Further reading

• Jeff Sparrow – "The Return of Helen Demidenko: From Literary Hoaxer to Political Operator" (2015)
• Therese-Marie Meyer (2006) Where Fiction Ends: Four Scandals of Literary Identity Construction. Wurzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann. Template:ISBN. Four case studies of fictional identity creation: Demidenko compared to Ern Malley, B. Wongar, and Frederick Philip Grove (FPB, German-Canadian author).

External links

• Audio interview with Helen Dale on ABC Radio National, with transcript
• 'My life as a young Australian novelist', May 2006 Quadrant article