WRITTING

State Property, my cold-war memoir

STATE PROPERTY is a personal account of life under Dictatorship , my encounter with Securitatea, and how I narrowly escaped 30 years in a Communist Prison in Ceausescu’s Romania, when in 1979, while still a teenager.
I was arrested and charged with High treason and conspiring against the State.
My ‘crime’?…”befriending [British] imperialists”…!

And how I was smuggled to safety to the UK by an English couple with a false Passport.
And my subsequent life as an artist/ refugee in the West during the Cold War, culminating with my extraordinary return to Romania in (11th. Dec) 1989, just a week before the bloody uprising in Timisoara.

Mariana Gordan

Reviews

I’d recommend this book to fellow Brits who currently seem rather terrified of Romanians. This woman was a spectacular “immigrant” to the UK long ago, and has many tales to tell from an unconventional life of art, adventure and survival.

( Amazon Customer Reviews )

‘It is enlightening to read a first-hand account of what normal life was like under communism and the thought processes people had to adopt in order to get by. For a free-thinking youngster it was never going to be easy navigating in a dysfunctional adult world of restrictions, rules and corruption. When backed into a corner, an unlikely escape route presents itself quite suddenly, and her life changes forever: this is a really gripping section of the book, full of danger, joyous tension and outlandish audacity. Arriving in the west, many adjustments have to be made as reality sinks in, and some sort of new life has to be built. Finally allowed to revisit her native land, she coincidentally arrives with perfect timing to see the old world start to crumble.

( Amazon Customer Reviews )

“One of the funniest things here is the portrait of British lefties abroad: despite taking the radical step of holidaying in a communist country during the cold war, they are not averse to a spot of troublemaking, given half a chance.”

By goodbookboy ( Amazon Customer Reviews )

“Captivating and beautifully written, it is difficult to put down once you start reading it. It discloses uncomfortable truths about human nature, our society, arts, and politics. It will certainly stir your emotions. You could even use it as a lessons learned in how to make this world a better place. Strongly recommended.”

By Michael Sekler ( Amazon Customer Reviews )