Omertà

Omertà is set in the 1950s and 1960s in a rural area near Cluj-Napoca, a city in a region that was Hungarian territory until it became part of Romania in 1920. The Second World War is over, and the countryside is being forced into Stalinist collectivization. The story unfolds in a village called Kolozsvár and is told through four narrators, each of whom gradually reveals the layers of their own life against the upheavals of mid-century Eastern Europe.

Kali, a peasant woman, flees an abusive marriage and makes her way to Kolozsvár in search of shelter and a purpose. She finds work as a maid for Vilmos, a Communist Party member who joined without enthusiasm and who cares above all for his garden. When his gifts as a plant breeder draw the state's notice, his private wishes collide with his political obligations. The third narrator, Annush, is a teenager in love, caught up in feelings of desire and loss while the country around her changes. The fourth, Eleonora, seeks peace in a monastery and becomes a victim of political purges and of the regime's suppression of religious faith.

Romanian-born Hungarian author Andrea Tompa weaves the four stories together into a portrait of a regime that tried to erase cultural identities, and of its injustice and corruption. Love, resilience and the quiet strength needed to survive political turmoil run through the book, along with the recurring presence of roses.