Y Dydd Olaf

The Last Day (Y Dydd Olaf) by Owain Owain holds a special place in the history of Welsh literature. It is one of a very small number of science fiction novels written originally in Welsh. It is also quite experimental in nature. Up until recently it was available only in Welsh, though Gwenno Saunders wrote a concept album based on the book, which I have reviewed in an earlier issue. However, in 2024 Parthian produced an English language version translated by Emyr W Humphreys. This is my review of the English version.

Unlike most of my reviews, this one is going to be deeply spoilerific. That’s partly because the book is very short (a novella by modern standards), partly because there is no other way to address the deeply complex narrative, and partly because the story begins at the end. In the first chapter the narrator announces that he is about to be euthanised, and we know from the prologue that he was.

Our narrator is known only as Marc, and we eventually meet him as a wide-eyed eighteen-year-old about to leave the small Welsh town where he grew up and head off to university in England. He will be accompanied by his childhood friend, Pedr, and will leave behind the girl for whose affections they have been competing since they were seven. Anna is a year younger than them, but will join them in due course.

Fifty-two years later, Marc is being held in what appears to be a concentration camp. It is called Sunset House and he is due to be euthanised because he is deemed surplus to society’s requirements. As it happens, he will die on December 31st, 1999. The last day of the 20th Century.

The story is told through interlaced timelines: one following Marc and Pedr as they grow older, and one presenting the few weeks before Marc’s death. All of the narration comes from Marc’s diary. He tells us that he is writing it in Welsh because by doing so he can evade the government censors. Anything deemed controversial (and some of it is) is replaced in the text by nonsense phrases, most often ‘fratolish hiang perpetshki’.

At university Marc and Pedr meet a West African student called Cwansa who is a political radical. Together they create an organisation called the Council of Fraternities which aims to bring together many different marginalized groups with the aim of creating true equality in society. With hindsight we can see that this noble project has been hijacked and that an appearance of equality has been achieved by turning much of humanity into cyborgs, while a significant number are earmarked for euthanasia, and a very small number known as the Few are actually in charge. They are ruled over by an autocrat known as the Computer-General, who appears to be a cyborg himself, or at least connected to the main computer that runs everything. It transpires that Marc has elected to be euthanized because he does not want to be ‘assimilated’.

The science fiction plot is fairly clear, and Owain actually has Marc mentioning reading 1984 and Brave New World, so that readers can see his influences. But it is not entirely clear what is going on because there are frequent references to something called ΩΔ which may be an alien world. Then there is the mysterious prologue supposedly written by the Higher Committee of the New Few, ten years after Marc’s death. We have no idea what this new world is like, but it does appear to have overthrown the regime of the Computer-General.

However, Owain is just as invested, if not more so, in his human story. Marc is socially awkward, for reasons that become slowly obvious. His father died when he was quite young, and he has been raised by his mother as an only child. Consequently he is significantly poorer than Pedr, who is able to buy his university textbooks new while Marc has to scour second hand stores. Anna’s father appears to disapprove of Marc, presumably due to his poverty. And then there is his father’s sister, Aunt Bodo, who also seems very poor and who may have a strained relationship with Marc’s mother.

While both boys pursue Anna, Pedr is a confident young man who is sure he will have a string of female conquests in his future, whereas Marc is unhealthily obsessed. At university Marc meets Siwsan who preempts the 1960s fashion for free love by shagging every bloke that moves. This does not seem good for Marc’s psyche, even though it teaches him a lot about sex.

Thanks to their friendship with Cwansa, Marc, Pedr and Anna become key figures in the Council of Fraternities. Anna eventually becomes involved with Cwansa. Pedr comes to see that things are going badly wrong, and begs Marc to use his friendship with Anna to influence Cwansa, but Marc seems reluctant to do so.

At this point we are deep into unreliable narrator territory. Marc appears to be deeply sunk into self-pity. Pedr, despite what Marc thinks of him, appears to clearly perceive the danger. As to Anna, well, that’s difficult. She and Marc have spent a lifetime telling each other than they don’t understand each other, but her true motivations are hard to discern. Is she simply unnerved by Marc’s obsession with her, or is she deeply ambitious and manipulative?

The prologue further complicates matters. The New Few state that Marc’s diary was published anonymously by someone who a) translated it; b) arranged the order of the extracts; and c) added a short epitaph addressed to Marc.

It is made clear that much human knowledge was lost in the 20th Century. Whoever rescued Marc’s diary must have a) been able to read Welsh; b) had a personal interest in him; and c) been in a powerful position within the Few. That has to be Anna. Which then leaves us asking, what in the diary has she left out?

Also, why is there no mention of ΩΔ in the prologue? Was Cwansa the Computer-General? It is not clear in the text. There is so much left unexplained.

A modern reader is likely to find the text somewhat problematic. Marc and Pedr display very sexist attitudes, some readers may find Siwsan a somewhat unbelievable character, and it is unclear whether the sole person of colour in the text is a villain or not. However, having been alive in the 1960s, I can assure you that the extreme reluctance of many of the characters to say what they think or discuss social issues is entirely realistic. So is the sexism, of course, and racism would be too. Eugenics was also very much in the air.

The period in which the book was written may also shed some light on the plot. Prior to WWII there was a lot of support for the USSR amongst British Socialists, of which there were many in Wales. After WWII it became increasingly obvious that something had gone very badly wrong, and that what had once seemed a noble project had become a vicious authoritarian regime.

I now need to address the legend of the book. It was written in 1968 and submitted for the Prose Medal at the 1970 National Eisteddfod. The judges declared themselves unable to make an award that year, because Y Dydd Olaf was obviously by far the best submission, but was so complex that they felt it unsuitable for the general reader. That’s very unusual for such a short book.

The book was picked up for publication in 1976. The publisher’s preface states (in translation), “Nothing like this book has been seen before in our language, nor anything quite like it in any language.” It was certainly unique in Welsh, but I am fairly sure that Owain was influenced by what he was reading in the wider science fiction field.

In 1967 extracts of John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar were published in New Worlds. The complete book was published in 1968. It caused a sensation because of its use of the so-called Dos Passos Technique, weaving fake news reports and the like in with the narrative. Owain does this. Extracts from Marc’s diary are interspersed with medical reports from Sunset House. I’m pretty sure that the judges at the Eisteddfod would never have seen anything like that before.

Finally I should address that fact that, for the first time, I am reviewing books in translation where I have some facility in both languages. I am wary of commenting on the quality of a translator’s work, unless the English is particularly poor. You, as readers, will be primarily interested in whether the book is a good read or not. It is not as if you have two rival translations that you need to choose between.

And yet, when you do know both languages, whole new vistas open up. I don’t have a copy of the original Welsh, but Nat Harrington’s review in The Ancillary Review of Books supplies a few words that got me thinking.

Firstly, Owain’s name for his authoritarian government is Cyngor y Frawdoliaeth, which I would have translated as the Council of the Brotherhood. I think that gives much more of an impression of an organisation run by dudebros who work in IT, which is exactly what Marc and Pedr are. It also locates the narrative more firmly within the history of Socialism. And I’m wondering if Owain was aware of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, because I know I was at the time.

Secondly, the name of the authoritarian leader, in Welsh, is Yr Uchel Gyfrifydd, the literal meaning of which is the High Accountant. I’m wondering if there is some relation to the Marvel villain, the High Evolutionary, who was also about at the time when the book was written.

Thirdly I am now wondering about the word, ‘assimilated’. Did Owain use the verb ‘cymathu’? Or is Humphreys invoking thoughts of the Borg in a modern reader?

Emyr Humphreys is a well-respected translator with an excellent track record, so I’m not about to question his judgement. But this does illustrate how translation can subtly change the meaning of a work.

Anyway, there it is. The Last Day is an experimental SF novel about a bunch of sexist, ambitious dudebro IT workers who start off with the best of intentions but end up creating an AI that enslaves the world. It was written in 1968. Obviously it had no chance of predicting the future, did it?

Title: Y Dydd Olaf
By: Owain Owain
Publisher: Parthian
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