Bucharest Romania, 1980s

The entirety of I Must Betray You is set in Bucharest Romania during the 1980s, when Ceausescu’s communist regime governed the nation. After the dictator rose to power, he razed historical buildings, private homes, and churches. The characters live in incomplete apartment buildings with limited access to heat and electricity. Throughout the novel, the narrator describes the atmosphere of fear and mistrust that pervades Romanian culture. Citizens are afraid to speak to one another because the state secretly recruited civilians as government agents. After the fall of Ceausescu’s regime, greenery and hope return to the city streets.

The Closet

The Florescu family lives in a small one-bedroom apartment within a government housing complex. Bunu advocates for Cristian to have his own space and the narrator uses the closet as his bedroom. Within the small space, Cristian secretly writes in his journal, hides the Bruce...