My life as a spy

Description

一九七三年，來自美國的人類學博士生凱薩琳．韋德瑞到羅馬尼亞進行田野調查。她生活在外西凡尼亞一個小村莊，漸漸和當地村民培養出家人般的感情。她以研究當地寫出的著作，更開啟西方國家東歐研究領域先河。然而，隨著九○年代羅馬尼亞共產政權垮臺，她卻從解密檔案中發現：自己曾被當成間諜，受到嚴密監控。國安局中有關她的祕密檔案，多達兩千多頁。 韋德瑞決定深入研究自己的監控檔案，藉以了解監控體制與線民文化。她回溯過去、找出線人，甚至訪問到當年負責監控她的國安局軍官。 然而揭開真相並不容易，甚至令人難堪。過程中，她曾看見自己被偷拍的影像，也曾發現過往深信不疑的人際關係，其實充滿陷阱。有人懷著目的接近她、更有朋友因她而身陷危險。而她與監控軍官的面對面，更是出乎意料之外的經歷。

Description

As Katherine Verdery observes, "There's nothing like reading your secret police file to make you wonder who you really are." In 1973 Verdery began her doctoral fieldwork in the Transylvanian region of Romania, ruled at the time by communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. She returned several times over the next twenty-five years, during which time the secret police--the Securitate--compiled a massive surveillance file on her. Reading through its 2,781 pages, she learned that she was "actually" a spy, a CIA agent, a Hungarian agitator, and a friend of dissidents: in short, an enemy of Romania. In My Life as a Spy she analyzes her file alongside her original field notes and conversations with Securitate officers. Verdery also talks with some of the informers who were close friends, learning the complex circumstances that led them to report on her, and considers how fieldwork and spying can be easily confused. Part memoir, part detective story, part anthropological analysis, My Life as a Spy offers a personal account of how government surveillance worked during the Cold War and how Verdery experienced living under it.

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