Novel
Absenții
Not translated into English
Augustin Buzura · 1970
Synopsis
Mihai Bogdan, a young doctor, recounts in the first person an evening when, lying on his bed, he cannot stop the flood of memories: a wounded childhood, the death of his parents, the mysterious death of Magdalena. He sees again his student years with his friend Nicolae, son of agricultural labourers as he himself is the son of a miner, and Professor Poenaru, who presented their laboratory work as his own and built a career from it. According to Enikő Marosfői, the hero struggles against himself and against those around him, unable to accept the injustices of the system.
Context
The novel appeared in 1970 from Dacia of Cluj and won its author the prize of the Writers' Union, the first of the three he received. According to Radio Romania International, it was banned during the tightening of the early seventies, then again in 1988, on the grounds that it painted the regime in dark colours. Mirela Belea sees in it a novel of conscience of Proustian inspiration and cites Eugen Simion, for whom its essential theme is the relation between revolt and value. It has appeared in Hungarian, Russian, Slovenian and Polish.
Who it is for
A long interior monologue by a single narrator, in Romanian; no French or English translation has been found.
Prizes and reception
For Enikő Marosfői, it is a psychological novel whose hero can pass for a double of the author.