Enemies of the People - by Kati Marton (Paperback)

About the Book

In a dark, compelling narrative of secrecy and betrayal, "New York Times"-bestselling author Marton trolls the archives of the Hungarian secret police to piece together her parents' imprisonment in and flight from Hungary in the mid-1950s.

Book Synopsis

Acclaimed journalist Kati Marton recounts her family's harrowing history of being targeted by Communist operatives and her own father's imprisonment as Cold War tensions ran high across Eastern Europe.

Enemies of the People is a tour de force, an important work of history as it was lived, a narrative of multiple betrayals on both sides of the Cold War that ends with triumph and a new beginning in America.

In this true-life thriller Kati Marton, an award-winning journalist, exposes the cruel mechanics of the Communist Terror State using the secret police files on her parents, as well as dozens of interviews that reveal how her family was spied on and betrayed by friends, colleagues, and even their children's babysitter. In this moving and brave memoir, Marton searches for and finds her parents and love.

Review Quotes

"Marton's story is one of bravery, suffering, survival and vindication. She tells it in straightforward, lucid prose . . . carefully reported, almost clinical account of what it is like to live in a totalitarian state and how hard it is to escape from it. . . . It's a terrific story, and Marton tells it very well."

--Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

"Powerful and absolutely absorbing. . . .Enemies of the People has all the magnetism, and, yes, the excitement, of the very best spy fiction. But would that it were fiction. . . . An honestly inspiring story."

--Alan Furst, The New York Times Book Review

"Wonderful. . . . A family story that reads like a novel. . . . A book that is honest, frank, and true . . . recalls the best works of Koestler and Orwell, but contained within a family story, which remains for all its horrors, touching, life-loving, even, in its own unsentimental way, inspirational."

--Michael Korda, The Daily Beast

About the Author

Kati Marton is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books, including True Believer: Stalin's Last American Spy and Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. An award-winning former NPR correspondent and ABC News bureau chief in Germany, she was born in Hungary and lives in New York City.