Lost Province: Adventures in a Moldovan Family

by Stephen Henighan

Stephen Henighan billets with a family as an English teacher in Moldova, a country born from the dismantling of Romania during World War II.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0888784325
• ISBN13: 9780888784322
• Release Date: November 2002
• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Good research material

I bought this for a research paper, and the author's personal point-of-view helped to make this book a very good source. The vendor got this to me very quickly. Thank you so much!

I love this book

The title of this book is perfect. Moldova certainly is a Lost Provence. Unfortunately this book is at least 10 years out of date. But for those interested in Moldova, it is one of the only books out there. It shows the heart, and the difficulties of life in this poor country. I read this book twice, and I remember many parts of it. For those just learning about Moldova this book along with Tony Hawks book, provides a nice contrast. Just like David Remnick's writings about Russia... I wished that this author would have stayed and kept on writing about Moldova.

"Experienced CIS Traveller" Tries Too Hard to Discredit This Book

Like any book, Lost Province has its supporters (like Kim from Africa) and its detractors (like J.L. Jordan). As the book's author, my concern is with J.O. Thorsnas's need to prove himself an "experienced CIS traveller." In his effort to show how much he knows, he distorts the book's contents by claiming "factual errors" that do not exist. To take his examples one at a time-- *Thorsnas writes two long paragraphs about Lviv, Ukraine, which I supposedly misrepesent. Guess what? Lost Province (page 8) contains only one paragraph about the city. In his excessive reaction, Thorsnas overlooks the fact that, for a traveller from the West, entering the former USSR in 1994, it was the legacy of the very recent past of the Soviet Union --decaying factories, smog, socialist apartment blocks, weird coupons with many zeroes standing in for cash-- that hit you in the face. Yes, in the more distant past, Lviv was a Habsburg city; but that sure wasn't what you noticed in 1994. Now that these cities --Lviv, Cernivitsi--have been cleaned up and have become marginally more prosperous, the Habsburg legacy is once again discernible. But that was not the case at the time Lost Province opens. *Thorsnas complains that "he simply does not care --or is not able to?--explain that...hardly any teacher, doctor or other academic earn[s] enough to live of[f[ in Moldova..." This is factually incorrect. On pages 34-35 I explain that men won't take jobs as teachers because the salary is too low (I even give the figure), and for this reason only women are unemployed as teachers. Contrary to Thorsnas's subsequent assertion, I illustrate through many of the stories in the book the fact that buying and selling in the informal sector or on the black market, or emigrating, are the only ways to earn a living for younger people. Once again, Thorsnas misrepresents the book's contents. *Thorsnas berates me for not realizing that the Romanian slang "bisnita" comes from Russian, not from the English word "business." Here I can't argue with him, as I don't know Russian. But I do wonder which language the Russians got this word from? Could it be English? *Thorsnas refers to a "misunderstanding" (?!) on my part in a scene where a Moldovan friend tells me that the Brezhnev years were the worst period in Soviet history for Moldovans. He seems to be making a claim that I don't realize that Russia, Ukraine and Moldova were all part of the U.S.S.R. at that time. It baffles me how he could think this, as the fact is referred to constantly in the book. Even in the scene where I supposedly "misunderstand" my friend, I cite this person as saying that Brezhnez was, "the worst Soviet leader" (page 57). Thorsnas's criticism depends, once again, on not telling the truth about the words that are on the page. It's worth noting that when Lost Province was published in Moldova in a Romanian translation in 2005, Moldovan and Romanian journalists and commentators did not complain of factual errors. Bu

A Small Gem About a Small Country

I'm so glad I read Lost Province before going to work in Moldova last year. This book is about living with a Moldovan family and it really makes you feel how Molodovan people live and act. I also read Charles King's The Moldovans, which is great for the history but is kind of a college-course book. Tony Hawks is funny, but only about half the book is about Moldova and his book is really about being an English guy who doesn't understand the rest of the world. Lost Province is about Moldovans. It shows you how hard their lives are and why they act like they do. Henighan is great at connecting the little things that happen in a family with the big picture. His take on the language issues is very influenced by the fact that he's Canadian, which is a bit weird at first, but once you get used to it, it's kind of interesting. I remembered Dora and Senya and Andrei for a long time after reading Lost Province, and when I got to Chisinau, Moldova I kept meeting people like them over and again. Moldova is a small country, but it deserves a small gem of a book like Lost Province.