Shadowline

The Dunera Diaries of Uwe Radok

Jacquie Houlden, Seumas Spark

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Paperback

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English

Monash University Publishing
01 November 2022

Diaries, letters & journals; Australasian & Pacific history; Biography - Australian

In September 1939 Britain declared war on Germany, and the life of Uwe Radok, a young German-born engineer working in Scotland, changed forever. Classified as an ‘enemy alien’, Uwe was deported to Canada on the Arandora Star. When the ship was torpedoed, drowning more than 800, Uwe and his brothers survived – only to be marched onto the infamous Dunera, bound for Australia.

From 1940 to 1943 Uwe kept a series of diaries. Their pages offer a remarkable account of the effects of displacement. The harrowing voyage and the tedium of indefinite detainment are rendered with clarity. Over time, this gives way to an exploration of the contours of love, as Uwe formed a sustaining connection with another male internee.

Edited by Uwe’s daughter Jacquie Houlden and historian Seumas Spark, the diaries offer a fascinating insight into life in wartime internment. In depicting the barriers to homosexual and bisexual love in the 1940s, they reveal a new element to the Dunera story that has gone unexplored. Vivid and poignant, Shadowline is a powerful portrait of a man torn between his feelings and society’s expectations.

Editor royalties from this book will be donated to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, to help protect and support those seeking asylum in Australia today.

Edited by: Jacquie Houlden, Seumas Spark
Imprint: Monash University Publishing
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 245mm, Width: 170mm,
ISBN: 9781922633620
ISBN 10: 1922633623
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 01 November 2022
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jacquie Houlden is Uwe Radok's daughter. An educator and co-founder of an education technology company, she has also written a children's book, Felix and the Flea Circus, about a flea running away from the circus to find his own dog. At home in the height of the Covid lockdown, she opened a tin containing her father's wartime diaries and began transcribing them, uncovering a surprising story. Seumas Spark is an Adjunct Fellow in History at Monash University. He is a co-author of Dunera Lives: Profiles and Dunera Lives: A Visual History and co-editor of 'I Wonder': The Life and Work of Ken Inglis.

Reviews for Shadowline: The Dunera Diaries of Uwe Radok

It is rare to read a diary which so vividly conjures up both time and place. In Shadowline Uwe Radok depicts the world he faced as a detainee in Australia during World War II and his struggles to understand and come to terms with his sexuality. It is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the ways in which Australia experienced that part of our history. -- Dennis Altman 'Much of Australia's history involves 'boat people'. Notable amongst them, the Dunera Boys. I thought I knew the story well until I read the diaries of Uwe Radok. Revelatory and remarkable!' -- Phillip Adams AO It is rare to read a diary which so vividly conjures up both time and place. -- Dennis Altman