Velvet Totalitarianism: Post-Stalinist Romania [Paperback]

Claudia Moscovici (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 29, 2009 | ISBN-10: 076184693X | ISBN-13: 978-0761846932

This book introduces students and the general public to the post-Stalinist phase of totalitarianism, focusing on Romania under the Ceausescu dictatorship, through the dual optic of scholarship and fiction, in a story about a family surviving difficult times under a totalitarian regime due to the strength of their love.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A deeply felt, deftly rendered novel of the utmost importance to any reader interested in understanding totalitarianism and its terrible human cost. Urgent, evocative, and utterly convincing, Velvet Totalitarianism is a book to treasure, and Claudia Moscovici is indeed a writer to watch, now and into the future. --Travis Holland, author of The Archivist's Story

Claudia Moscovici's  Velvet Totalitarianism triumphs on several levels: as a taut political thriller, as a meditation on totalitarianism, as an expose of the Ceausescu regime, and as a moving fictionalized memoir of one family's quest for freedom.

--Ken Kalfus, author of the novel A Disorder Peculiar to the Country

With style and wit, Claudia Moscovici tells a story of resilience and hope.  Velvet Totalitarianism is a novel well worth reading, both for its compelling narrative and for its important message. Michael Kort, Professor of Social Science

Claudia Moscovici offers her readers a multifaceted book--Velvet Totalitarianism--that is at once a love story, a political novel and a mystery. --Sanda Golopentia, Professor of French, Brown University

Velvet Totalitarianism is a book well worth reading. The novel is a page-turner, witty and well written.

  --Nicolae Klepper, author of Romania: An Illustrated History.

Moving between extraordinary and ordinary lives, between Romania and the United States, velvet totalitarianism and relative freedom, dire need and consumerism, evoking her Romanian experience in the seventies, the emigration to the U.S. of her family in the eighties, and the 1989 uprising in Timisoara and Bucharest that marked the end of Ceausescu's regime, Claudia Moscovici offers her readers a multifaceted book - Velvet Totalitarianism - that is at once a love story, a political novel, and a mystery. (Sanda Golopentia, professor of French, Brown University )

This vivid novel by Claudia Moscovici, historian of ideas and wide-ranging literary critic, traces a family of Romanian refugees from the stifling communist dictatorship of their homeland through their settling in the United States during the 1980s. This fascinating and compelling story is at home historically accurate, exciting, sexy, and a real page-turner. (Edward K. Kaplan, professor in the Humanities at Brandeis University )

Claudia Moscovici's first novel, Velvet Totalitarianism, triumphs on several levels: as a taut political thriller, as a meditation on totalitarianism, as an expose of the Ceausescu regime, and as a moving fictionalized memoir of one family's quest for freedom. (Ken Kalfus, author of the novel A Disorder Peculiar to the Country )

A deeply felt, deftly rendered novel of the utmost importance to any reader interested in understanding totalitarianism and its terrible human cost. Urgent, evocative, and utterly convincing, Velvet Totalitarianism is a book to treasure, and Claudia Moscovici is indeed a writer to watch, now and into the future. (Travis Holland, author of The Archivist's Story )

In Velvet Totalitarianism, Claudia Moscovici makes her readers viscerally feel the corrosive psychological demoralization and numbing fear totalitarian regimes impose on those who live under them. At the same time, with style and wit, and informed by her experiences as a child in communist Romania and then as an immigrant in the United States, she tells a story of resilience and hope. Velvet Totalitarianism is a novel well worth reading, both for its compelling narrative and for its important message. (Michael Kort, professor of social science at Boston University, author of The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath )

The author experienced totalitarianism personally while living in Romania with her family during the Nicolae Ceausescu regime. And many of her own experiencies find their way into her historically rich piece of fiction. (Heritage Newspapers, October 8, 2009 )

Review

Claudia Moscovici's first novel, Velvet Totalitarianism, triumphs on several levels: as a taut political thriller, as a mediation on totalitarianism, as an ex pose of the Ceausescu regime, and as a moving fictionalized memoir of one family's quest for freedom.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 414 pages
• Publisher: University Press of America (July 29, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076184693X
• ISBN-13: 978-0761846932
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.1 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,834,682 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Claudia Moscovici is an art and literary critic as well as the author of the critically acclaimed novels "Velvet Totalitarianism" (2009) and "The Seducer" (2011). "Velvet Totalitarianism" was republished in translation in her native country, Romania, under the title "Intre Doua Lumi" (Curtea Veche Publishing, 2011). In 2002, she co-founded with Mexican sculptor Leonardo Pereznieto the international aesthetic movement called "postromanticism" (see http://postromanticism.com/), devoted to celebrating beauty, passion and sensuality in contemporary art. She wrote a book on Romanticism and its postromantic survival called "Romanticism and Postromanticism," (Lexington Books, 2007) and taught philosophy, literature and arts and ideas at Boston University and at the University of Michigan. Most recently, she published a nonfiction book on psychopathic seduction, called "Dangerous Liaisons" (Hamilton Books, 2011).

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely Book! February 23, 2010

By Suni Black

Format:Paperback

This beautifully told story of a family's struggle to stay together is very moving. Interwoven with the narrative is an intrigue between a secret service operative for and a woman forced to trade her body in exchange for the welfare of those she loves. It's a complicated, beautiful story which sheds light on an oppressive regime. Before reading this book, I was totally unaware of the human rights oppression committed against the people of Romania. Through this lovely story of a family's struggle, I saw a daily life in all its joy and horror. Well written and extremely moving.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Vivid Portrayal February 23, 2010

By Susanne Black

Format:Paperback

Claudia Moscovici creates a vivid portrayal of the lives of ordinary people living in totalitarian Romania.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable comic epic February 6, 2010

By Didilet

Format:Paperback

Velvet Totalitarianism could be best described as a comic epic. This enjoyable novel tells the story of a family struggling to survive the repression of communist Romania during the Ceausescu regime.It has the ambitious range and tragic elements of an epic, while also being filled with touching anecdotes and humor: the laughter through tears kind that Eastern European writers are known for.This novel has it all. It's a story of survival that will move you, entertain you and inform you.