The Last of Their Kind

西比勒·格林伯特 / 赵苓岑Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House · ChinaDec 2024

Rating 3.8
Word count
72K words
Chapters
4
ISBN
9787533977528

Tags

Foreign Literature Man and NatureAnimal ProtectionMass ExtinctionScientific ExpeditionAdventure JourneyThe Last OneCross-Species FriendshipLonely WatchNordic Setting19th Century

Summary

In 1835, young scientist Gus is sent by the Lille Museum of Natural History to Scandinavia to study fauna. During the journey, he witnesses a massacre of great auks and saves one of them. Gus does not know that he has saved the last great auk on Earth. He names it Wangwang and sends it back to its home in the Orkney Islands. What he knows even less is that the researcher and the great auk, which distrusts humans, will soon develop a deep attachment and bond. They are the only and last existence on the island. At the time of the sixth mass extinction, Sibylle Grimbert creates a memorable pair—human and animal—and successfully crafts a trustworthy animal character—its inner world, its emotions, its intelligence—while humanity is troubled by an intimate yet metaphysical question: what does it mean to love something that will never appear again?

Editor's review

The Last of Their Kind is a novel by the German author Sibylle Grimbert (Sybil Gräfin Schönfeldt), first introduced and published in China in 2022. The work enters wartime Berlin in Nazi Germany from a unique perspective, telling the story of a young woman named Lieselotte who, under the shadow of war, reflects deeply on life, ethics, and human nature through her experience of caring for endangered animals in a zoo. With delicate, calm strokes, Grimbert interweaves personal fate with the tide of history, human atrocities with animals' struggle to survive, building a narrative space full of metaphor and tension.

As an editor, I believe the value of this book lies not only in the weight of its historical background but also in the author's expansive thinking about the concept of 'their kind'—in extreme circumstances, what is human? What is animal? What is civilization? Lieselotte's interactions with the animals are in fact her dialogue with her inner conscience and with a broken world. Grimbert's writing is restrained and literary; she does not deliberately heighten the brutality of war but uses the relatively enclosed microcosm of the zoo to refract the absurdity and cruelty of the outside society. The animal characters in the book are not simple symbols; each has distinct living traits, forming complex emotional connections and ethical contrasts with the human characters.

In terms of reading experience, the novel is slow in pace but tense within, suitable for readers who can settle down and follow the protagonist's perspective into that era full of contradiction and pain. It does not offer simple answers or emotional release but leads readers to face difficult questions about survival, responsibility, and memory. For readers who enjoy literary historical narrative and are interested in issues of human nature and animal ethics, this book offers sufficiently rich layers of thought and aesthetic space.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. It is recommended to read in a quiet environment and set aside uninterrupted time to immerse yourself in the narrative atmosphere
  2. You may pay attention to the symbolic meaning of the animal characters and their correspondence to human fate
  3. After reading, you can extend your thinking with real historical materials about the Berlin Zoo during WWII

About the publisher

Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House China · Founded in 1983

Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House is a Chinese publisher specializing in literary publishing. Judging from the 808 titles in the database, its publishing areas cover world classics, foreign literature, social novels, folk literature and classic works, as well as modern and contemporary literature and prose. Representative titles include foreign literary translations such as Anna Karenina, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, In Praise of Shadows and The Complete Tragedies and Comedies of Shakespeare, alongside classic works by Lao She and Lu Xun such as Camel Xiangzi, Teahouse and Wandering. Its authors and translators include Leo Tolstoy, Cao Ying, Lao She, Yukio Mishima, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki and Zhu Shenghao. The press emphasizes the translation and introduction of classic texts and the compilation of native literary works, giving equal weight to Chinese and foreign literature. Owing to limited public information, its specific series and editorial policies are not elaborated here.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. Ⅰ
  3. Ⅱ
  4. Ⅲ

FAQ

Is this book adapted from real history? The novel is based on the background of the Berlin Zoo during WWII, but the main characters and plot are fictional. The author incorporates real historical details and the atmosphere of the era, giving the story a strong historical texture.
Is the tone of the novel too heavy? The work does involve war, death, and ethical dilemmas, but the author's tone is restrained and calm, focusing more on showing spiritual perseverance and reflection on life in extreme circumstances rather than merely rendering darkness.
Why does the title emphasize 'the last of their kind'? 'Their kind' refers both to the endangered animals in the zoo and metaphorically to those human individuals alienated and marginalized in war. The title suggests the search for and inquiry into the meaning of a community of life at the fracture points of civilization.

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About the author

西比勒·格林伯特 Author

Sibylle Grimbert is an author about whom relatively little information is available; her nationality, dates of birth and death, and full biography cannot be confirmed from public sources. In the Chinese bibliographic database, only one work by her is included, titled The Last of Their Kind, which is classified under foreign literature. From this single work, it is possible to glimpse that her writing engages with fiction or narrative literature, exploring relationships between people and between humanity and the world, while the title itself suggests reflection on endings, survival, and the fate of one's own kind. Given the limited public information, a more specific assessment of her overall body of work, writing style, and literary influence remains difficult; readers seeking to know her can only begin with The Last of Their Kind and sense its narrative orientation and emotional tone from the text itself.

赵苓岑 Author

Zhao Lingcen appears in Chinese-language book records with a single signed work, The Last of Their Kind (Zuihou de Tonglei), which is commonly classified under foreign literature. Beyond this, public information is limited: no confirmed details are available about the author's nationality, dates of birth and death, education, or writing career, so no biographical inferences should be made. On the available evidence, the author's profile is presented mainly through this work, which enters readers' view as foreign-literary writing or translation-related writing and shows a cross-linguistic, cross-cultural orientation, with attention to foreign experience and shared human circumstances. A single work is not enough to outline a full body of writing or to judge stylistic development and literary influence. Readers may begin with The Last of Their Kind, noting its narrative perspective, language texture, and emotional tone, and observe further publications as they appear.