Burying the Typewriter

‘This story starts roughly in the 1970s, a few years after I was born, about the time when I began to have memories and my father’s codename was already long established as “Andronic”, a name we learned about only last summer . . .’

At 2 a.m. on 10 March 1983, Carmen Bugan’s father the family home, alone. That afternoon, Carmen returned from school to find officers of the Securitate, the Romanian secret police, in her living room. Her father had been detained for his protests against the Communist regime in Romania, and the family home was now laced with surveillance devices.

Overnight, Carmen’s life became a living hell of paranoia and small-scale resistance, her schoolteachers and the friends and neighbours all around her transformed into potential informants. Burying the Typewriter is the story of Carmen’s coming-of-age in the twilight years of Ceausescu’s rule, and an extraordinary story of resilience and courage in the face of jeopardy.

Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.