Deibel, Linda

views updated

Deibel, Linda

PERSONAL:

Female.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Office—Toronto Star, One Yonge St., Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E6, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer and journalist. Toronto Star, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, senior reporter, has served as Washington bureau chief and as Latin American correspondent based in Mexico City.

AWARDS, HONORS:

National Newspaper Award, Canada; Amnesty International Media Award (three), for reports from Mexico, Haiti, and Colombia.

WRITINGS:

Betrayed: The Assassination of Digna Ochoa (nonfiction), Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

In her first book, Betrayed: The Assassination of Digna Ochoa, journalist Linda Diebel, who served as Latin American correspondent for the Toronto Sun, writes about the death of a former nun who became a lawyer and civil rights activist. Although Ochoa is found shot in the leg and the head with a note by her side threatening her fellow activists, the Mexican government claimed that her death was a suicide, a statement that none of her friends believed. In her book, Diebel tells Ochoa's life story, including her efforts fighting for the indigenous poor, efforts which embarrassed the Mexican government by revealing their alliances with death squads and illegal drug dealers. Despite the author's own friendship with Ochoa, she presents "a bizarre ‘psychological’ profile of Ochoa that … [she] perfectly situates within her complex first-person narrative of betrayal," as noted by Jim Hahn in the Library Journal. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called Betrayed "a carefully constructed, righteously angry investigation." Colin Whitebread, writing in the Catholic New Times, commented: "Although sometimes gut wrenching, this story belongs among the annals of Latin American justice seekers. Her inspiring story deserves to be read." A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that the author's "account of Ochoa's life and death assumes the appealing momentum of a whodunit."