Burying the Typewriter - Hardcover

Carmen Bugan

3.98

526 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1447210832 ISBN 13: 9781447210832

Publisher: Picador, 2012

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One of the 7 books shortlisted for the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing, April 2013 (UK)Winner of the Bakeless Prize for Nonfiction, a childhood memoir of political oppression and persecution during Romania's Ceausescu years Carmen Bugan grew up amid the bounty of the Romanian countryside on her grandparent's farm where food and laughter were plentiful. But eventually her father's behavior was too disturbing to ignore. He wept when listening to Radio Free Europe, hid pamphlets in sacks of dried beans, and mysteriously buried and reburied a typewriter. When she discovered he was a political dissident she became anxious for him to conform. However, with her mother in the hospital and her sister at boarding school, she was alone, and helpless to stop him from driving off on one last, desperate protest.
After her father's subsequent imprisonment, Bugan was shunned by her peers at school and informed on by her neighbors. She candidly struggled with the tensions of loving her "hero" father who caused the family so much pain. When he returned from prison and the family was put under house arrest, the Bugans were forced to chart a new course for the future. A warm and intelligent debut, Burying the Typewriter provides a poignant reminder of a dramatic moment in Eastern European history.

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About the Author:

Carmen Bugan is the author of the collection of poetry Crossing the Carpathians. Her work has been published in Harvard Review, the Times Literary Supplement, and Modern Poetry in Translation.

Review:

'extraordinary memoir..startling warmth, perception and humanity'-- Quentin Curtis, Telegraph
'a celebration of the power of the written word'-- Janet Christie, Scotland on Sunday
'beautiful, vivid memoir'-- Patrick Barkham, Guardian

'{T}enderly moving memoir... poignant and unsentimental ..Bugan reminds us of the crushing sacrifices that Eastern European dissidents endured in those years.'--Roger Atwood, Boston Globe

'...an impressive feat of narrative skill. ... Carmen Bugan has written a moving and truthful first-hand account of a story that cannot fail to absorb; her skill as a writer makes it an exemplary memoir as well.'--Patrick McGuinness, The Times Literary Supplement

'A stunningly powerful piece of writing, a modern classic.' --Bee Wilson, Sunday Times

'A book touched with grace.'--Paul Bailey, The Independent

In a remarkably forgiving memoir, Bugan recalls with fascinating detail a time when neighbors became informers to a corrupt regime scared of its own poor citizens. Bugan's memoir is the winner of the 2011 Bakeless Prize for Creative Nonfiction.--Roche, Rick Copyright 2010 Booklist

“In Burying the Typewriter, Carmen Bugan delivers neither a memoir of blame nor a hagiography. What she has drawn, within the story of her own childhood, is a complex portrait of an exasperating father, a man who happens to be a hero in the eyes of Amnesty International and the Western World, a hero in the service of a just cause. But, while he may be the driving force behind her story . . . it is her world that is revealed here, a world she was forced to leave behind and that she looks back on now with sorrow, pride, longing and rage.”--Lynn Freed, Bakeless Prize judge

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