The Last Winter – General information
The Last Winter is the version translated into English by the late Viviane Prager, of the novel Ultima Iarna, published in 2003 by the Albatros Publishing House in Bucharest.
The Last Winter este varianta tradusa in engleza, de către regretata Viviane Prager, a romanului Ultima Iarna publicat in 2003 la editura Albatros din București.
The Last Winter was published in three editions so far:
– 2004, ISBN 0-595-31270-5 (Paperback)
– 2022, ISBN 978-1-956529-70-8 (Paperback) ISBN 978-1-956529-69-2 (eBook)
– 2023, ISBN: 978-1-961879-08-9 (sc) 978-1-961879-09-6 (e)
The Last Winter – Synopsis
The Synopsis of the books on the back cover were written by the late Viviane Prager, the translator of the novel The Last Winter.
Two worlds-one story. Two worlds falling apart: Romania from the agony of Ceausescu’s reign and under his successors to this day, and Nineveh the doomed, shortly before the Babylonian conquest in 612 BC. One story: rampant corruption, lawlessness, pervasive moral degradation, and cruelty. Rulers and robbers are almost impossible to distinguish from one another. A thin minority of honest people still try to change their worlds: some fight in bloody revolutions, others devise new laws. Do they have a chance? The lead character, a researcher, comes from their ranks. His is a long-term vision. He seems to think that, beyond their decline and punishment, both worlds have something left to salvage – their libraries, their cultural identities. The Last Winter relates his dreams, his struggle, and, implicitly, his hope. He has essentially one friend, a cat, and one hope-that future generations will appreciate and need the heritage he’s striving to preserve. Wish him luck.
2004 edition, ISBN 0-595-31270-5 (Paperback)
The Last Winter describes the agony of a researcher and, broadly speaking, of the honest Romanian intelligentsia, in the muddled period that followed the overturn of Nicolae Ceausescu’s dictatorship in late 1989. The deprivations that politicians imposed on the Romanian public for the sake of an ambivalent switch to market economy and delusive future welfare took a serious toll on the country. The lead character, a researcher, found himself caught between two ostensibly different worlds that hardly differed in reality, insofar as they were products of the same clique of politicians that only paid lip service to Eastern Europe’s political U-turn of the 1990s. Persecuted under the Communist regime, the character has trouble adjusting to the mock capitalism that follows. His is a self-denying struggle for preserving the fundamental values of mankind embodied by the endangered library-that of his own research institute and its symbolic counterpart, Assurbanipal’s famous library in Nineveh. The researcher is killed while unsuccessfully trying to save the former, but compensates by saving the latter in his dying hour’s visions – a silver lining to this gloomy ending as the author believes that fundamental values will eventually prevail.
2022 edition, ISBN 978-1-956529-70-8 (Paperback)
2023 edition, ISBN: 978-1-961879-08-9 (Paperback)
The author Adrian Grigore highly appreciates Viviane Prager’s excellent work and expresses his regret for her untimely demise. God rest her soul in peace!
https://www.okazii.ro/dictionar-enciclopedic-de-iudaism-viviane-prager-a231843869
https://www.printrecarti.ro/12_72-istorie-universala/28814-dictionar-enciclopedic-de-iudaism.html
History of book The Last Winter – provided by the Author
The Last Winter was inspired by an unpleasant incident that happened in one of the most important scientific libraries in Romania, where, at that time, January 2003, my wife Valerica was the manager. The library was housed in an inappropriate location (which appears in the book as Tower B).
During the Christmas holidays, the library was left without heating, due to the negligence of the owner of the building. There was a heavy blizzard and the wooden sashes gave way. Snow has entered the corridors. The water pipes, that were improper, broke and the library was flooded. A strong frost came and the library was covered by ice.
I shot some incredible images, with very valuable scientific books covered by ice and with icicles hanging from the shelves. The recording was immediately confiscated by officials and I was even threatened by very important people. I explained that my intention was only an artistic one, to inspire me to write a book about the fragility of the support on which the scientific information of mankind is kept, but they could not understand it. They were afraid that the film of the disaster in the library would not be broadcast on any television station, and thus their political position would be endangered. My wife asked me for help. I brought my intervention team from National Seismic Network (where I worked then) and we cleaned the ice out of the library.
All of these, as well as the fact that Romanian researchers had a very hard life at that time, and many of them emigrated to Western countries for better, inspired me and, in a few months, I wrote one book that I published at the Romanian publishing house ALBATROS in May 2003 under the name ULTIMA IARNĂ (The Last Winter) ISBN 973-24-0995-9 and which I dedicated to “To my friends, the researchers”. The politicians responsible for the fate of Romanian Research at that time, as well as other people who felt targeted by the action of the book, were not happy. Through methods specific to the communist period, they tried to prevent the spread of the book through bookstores.
Then, I considered that this novel must be distributed throughout the world, to make known to all the problems of Romanian researchers, both during the communist dictatorship and during the turbulent and difficult period of the long transition towards democracy and the market economy, which followed the removal to Nicolae Ceausescu on December 22, 1989.
I had the chance to meet a Lady named Viviane Prager who really liked my novel and who offered to translate it into English. Mrs. Prager was a true revolutionary and had even been arrested and taken to Jilava prison during the anti-communist uprising in Bucharest on December 21-22, 1989. She put a lot of passion and skill into the translation of my novel The Last Winter. I am grateful to her and I keep her memory alive.
A few years later, I went to Air Force Technical Application Center (AFTAC) – Patrick Air Force Base – FL, USA, together with an official delegation that included the Minister of Research, Professor Dr. Gheorghe POPA. I gave him the autographed book, and he read it breathlessly during the transoceanic flight to Orlando-Florida. The action of the book impressed him and the result was that, in a short time he allocated funds for the modernization of a suitable location for the scientific library, which was almost abandoned in Tower B.
In two years, the scientific library of the Institute was moved to a modern location with many facilities, which was appreciated by all the Romanian researchers, including my wife Valerica who was the manager. I believe that The Last Winter book triggered this change for the better.
The Last Winter – REVIEWS
The Last Winter offers a deep approach to understanding the condition of the scientist in these rough times we are going through. The novel’s time setting oscillates between the present and the past. The theme of the action is reflected by book’s motto: “Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (I Corinthians, 1:20).
Having the events of 1989 as its first temporal landmark that leads to the fall of the communist regime, the author evokes significant aspects of the main character’s life – the Researcher – speaking of the scientific research in the Romanian society at the turn of the century. “Disregarded and enslaved” in the last century, “despised and humiliated” in this age, the Researcher, motivated by his anachronistic beliefs in a society selling “convenient truths”, is engaged in finding the truth; the oppressors do not change, regardless of the era.
The narrative “wraps” around Tower B – the pillar of scientific information, crowned with the iconic giant atom, once the proud expression of scientific research. Driven by an older childish desire to touch the giant atom – an exacerbation of the essence of the material world – the researcher enters Tower B, affected by the harsh winter weather. The library – the informational treasure of research – triggers, due to the unfortunate injury of the researcher (he slips on the stairs and hits his head), a real initiatory journey of the main character, in search of the Truth.
It traverses the Ages, from ancient Nineveh to the present day, entering and leaving time, as in the waters of parallel mirrors, depending on the moments of fainting or return to diurnal reality; it deforms or clears after subjective temporal landmarks. The contact with the immanent reality is maintained by the presence of the tomcat Isaac – discreet witness of History. The plans of the narrative intersect; time expands or it contracts in close connection with the emotional memory of the main character. The loss of contact with “objective” reality paradoxically leads to its depth.
The initiatory journey into the Assyro-Babylonian space, undertaken by the character of the book, aims to save information – the ceramic tablets of the library in ancient Nineveh – and, implicitly, to find the way to know the Truth. If the ancient library is well hidden, secured so as not to be destroyed by the avatars of history, the library in Tower B is exposed to perishability. The issue of information retention opens up a wide field of reflection.
The testimonies of the times seem to show that the material support for storing information is increasingly vulnerable. Does digitalization protect us from this vulnerability?! Information paves the way for knowledge, but is it enough? The truth about Creation involves much more! The meeting with the “research father”, the discussion at the forest hermitage opens the horizon for the researcher to the true way of knowing the Truth – the Creator’s indulgence and help in discovering Creation: “Knowledge and faith…, Can’t go without each other, for you can’t know anything unless you believe.” (See p. 138 et seq.). We would discover nothing if the Creator of all things did not allow us to do it. The desecration of scientific knowledge takes us (paradoxically!) away from the Creator’s Work. “It will be up to the new century researchers to restore holiness to science, or else mankind will forever stumble on a sort of barrier that blocks the road to real knowledge. We will continue to take pride on moving the barrier a further step away on this great road the end of which we’ll never reach.” (See p. 139 et seq.).
The famous phrase attributed to Malraux seems, in this context, the argument of a revelation – “the 21st century will be religious or not at all”. The researcher, “crushed between two ages”, will have to put “faith before reason and theological virtue before the inquisitive mind.” It is a very difficult path, but the only true one that leads to the essence and meaning of knowledge; without the divine spark, wisdom is madness, as the book’s motto warns us. In addition to real fictional qualities due to the narrative construction in adjacent planes (sometimes difficult for an uninformed reader to follow) and the fluent style, Adrian Grigore’s book proposes to the reader an issue that cannot leave him indifferent.
Ioana VARGA – Professor of Literature
Email: gr.ioana@gmail.com
Phone: + 40 723 144 325
Dr Adrian Grigore is a scientist and a very gifted fiction writer. His most recent novel, The Last Winter is particularly significant for the Romanian scientific community and endeared by many of us, not only for the author’s exceptional gift of clear and attractive writing, but also for his list of subjects that are well-known by us in Romania and less known abroad. This list comprises a frozen scientific library, the richest in Romania, that was left without heating during the winter because of the indifference of the administrators and politicians. (…) The Last Winter is a vivid picture of an ex-communist society that falls in ruin in the post-communist era, as it is depicted by a professional scientist.”
Dr. Marian Apostol
Professor of Theoretical Physics
Member of the European Academy