Helga M Griffin
Helga Maria Griffin (née Girschik) was born in Turkey in 1935. In 1956, she married an Australian in Rome. She subsequently raised six children in Australia and Papua New Guinea. She taught in further education, and from 1979–98 was on the staff of the Australian Dictionary of Biography project. With Anthony Regan, she edited the comprehensive study Bougainville Before the Conflict (Pandanus Books, 2005).
At Home in Exile »
A Memoir
Authored by: Helga M Griffin
Publication date: February 2021
This is a story of a girl’s construction of her identity, and of her family’s search for a place in the world, for the Heimat that is so resonant for those of German background. We follow Helga through an adventurous childhood in Iran, whose vast open spaces her mother called ‘my spiritual home’. Her engineer father worked on a grand scale, designing and laying roads and railways, and tunnelling through mountain ranges. Then came the invasions of…
Bougainville before the conflict »
Edited by: Anthony J Regan, Helga M Griffin
Publication date: August 2015
One of the most beautiful island groups of the Pacific, Bougainville has a remarkable history. Tragically, it is as the site of devastating civil conflict that Bougainville is perhaps best known.
In exploring the rich environmental, cultural and social heritage of Bougainville before the conflict, this collection provides an insight into the long-term causes of the crisis. In doing so, it surveys such topics as Bougainville’s prehistory and traditional cultures, the impact of…