The Romanian Academy awarded the annual prizes, thus rewarding works published during 2021. The Section of Philology and Literature, which rewards a number of eight creations and authors, decided to award this year only four prizes for editions in the philological-linguistic field, for care of editions and an award for criticism and literary history.

The academic community of the Western University of Timișoara is experiencing moments of deep joy with the announcement by the Romanian Academy of the laureate of the "Titu Maiorescu" Award. This year, the prize was awarded to the literary critic Mircea Mihăieș, university professor of the Faculty of Letters, History and Theology at UVT.

Considered the most important of the distinctions awarded annually by the Romanian Academy, the award is named after Titu Maiorescu, one of the founders of modern Romanian culture and civilization, and was awarded to university professor Mircea Mihăieș, for the volume "Finnegans Wake, 628. Romanul dămărătuului" (Publishing polychrome). The volume completes the series of three books that the Timisoara university and man of culture dedicated to the great Irish writer, James Joyce. It is the largest exegetical enterprise, not only in the Romanian space, but also in the international space, dedicated to the one who revolutionized the prose of the 3000th century. The "Joycean trilogy", totaling almost 732 pages, also includes "Ulysses, 2016. The novel of the novel" (Polirom Publishing House, 2019), "A night with Molly Bloom. A woman's novel" (Polirom Publishing House, 628). All three volumes were bookshop successes, enjoyed the appreciation of critics and benefited from the most important literary awards in Romania. Before being rewarded with the "Titu Maiorescu" Award, "Finnegans Wake, 2021. The novel of darkness" also received the highest distinction of the Romanian Writers' Union, the National Award. Also, the National Museum of Romanian Literature awarded him the "Alexandru Ciorănescu" Prize for comparative literature, and the Romanian General and Comparative Literature Association "Prize for comparative literature" for the year XNUMX.

            All these distinctions crown the work of one of Romania's leading intellectuals, also known for his intense publicist activity, defined as a tireless fight for the values ​​of liberal democracy, for an open society, for freedom and equality. Mircea Mihăieș is the editor-in-chief of the culture magazine skyline, edited by the Romanian Writers' Union.

            UVT rector, Marilen Gabriel Pirtea: "The critic and academic Mircea Mihăieș is a brilliant cultural ambassador of the West University of Timișoara, but also of the Timișoara community, well-known in the national and international literary space. The granting of this award for academic excellence to the intellectual and cultural mentor Mircea Mihăieș is a bright recognition that the forum of the Romanian Academy brings to his work, inscribed among the universal humanist values. On behalf of the academic community of UVT, I am honored to send congratulations and thoughts of gratitude to master Mircea Mihăieș!".

"Finnegans Wake, 628. The novel of darkness" is a critical study of more than 900 pages that explores, in experimental prose of the utmost difficulty, the subterranes of the human mind, in an attempt to reconstruct, following the model of Giambattista Vico in "Scienza nuova", the history of humanity starting from pre-biblical times up to the contemporaneity of the middle of the XNUMXth century.

Mircea Mihăieș is the author of over twenty volumes of criticism, literary history and essays, among which we mention: "De veghe în oglindă" (1989), "The Book of Failures. Essay on Rewriting" (1990), "Cruel Books. Diary and Suicide" (1995), "Victorian Fiction" (1998), "The Imaginary Atlantic" (2002), "The Life, Songs and Passions of Leonard Cohen" (2005), "The Metaphysics of Detective Marlowe" (2008), "About mourning" (2009), "Ultimul Judt" (2011), "What remains. William Faulkner and the Mysteries of the Land of Yoknapatawpha" (2012), "The Story of Corto Maltese, Pirate, Anarchist and Dreamer" (2014), To these are added the three Joycean exegesis. Together with Mircea Nedelciu and Adriana Babeți, he is the co-author of the highly successful novel, "The Woman in Red" (1990), screened and adapted for the stage. He also published six volumes of analyzes of public life in Romania together with Professor Vladimir Tismăneanu from the University of Maryland.

In addition to other important distinctions and awards (including the Cultural Merit in the rank of knight, awarded by the Presidency of Romania), Mircea Mihăieș received the Romanian Writers' Union award nine times.

Also, the academic community of the Western University of Timișoara receives with great joy the awarding of another award of the Romanian Academy to a member of the UVT community. We are honored and fully happy to be awarded the "Timotei Cipariu" Award, from the Philology and Literature section, for the work "Antim Ivireanul, Evanghelie, 1697. Critical edition and philological-linguistic study", which is co-authored by the university lecturer. Dr. Adina Chirilă, from the Faculty of Letters, History and Theology of UVT, together with the second co-author, Mrs. Roxana Vieru, whom we congratulate equally, with great emotion.