Dear Reader,
Imagine a world of controlled darkness.
A world where your career is assigned, housing is assigned, electricity and nourishment are controlled—even women’s fertility is controlled. And to ensure that you conform, “blue-eyed boys” are watching you, tracking you, even spying on you through hidden surveillance devices. This is a world where you might be chosen as an informant, a world where you are denied the most powerful, fundamental human right: choice.
These sound terrifying, but they also sound fictional and dystopian. But they are not.
This was the maniacal dynasty of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, a regime that more than twenty million Romanians were forced to endure while fenced off from the rest of the world. And this is the story of one brave young man who risks everything to search for truth. To search for change. And freedom.
Although I Must Betray You is a work of historical fiction, the Ceaușescu dictatorship and the extended suffering of countless Romanians were hauntingly real—yet remain unfamiliar to many.
When history lies hidden in the shadows, those connected to that history often feel misunderstood. But together, as readers, we have an opportunity to shine a light into the darker corners of the past, to learn, grow, and honor the brave souls who experienced it. That is the power of books.
Thank you for reading I Must Betray You—and thank you for supporting my pursuit of underrepresented history these past ten years!
Ruta Sepetys