Doomsday looms

Gudrun Pausewang's anti-nuclear novels

Susan Tebbutt

pp. 127-139

in: Karen Sayer, John Moore (eds), Science fiction, critical frontiers, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

Gudrun Pausewang (born 1928 in the Sudetenland) is one of Germany's leading contemporary authors of socially critical fiction for young people, and is extremely committed to utopian thinking, yet in her two anti-nuclear novels The Last Children of Schevenborn (1983) and Fall-out (1987)¹ she portrays dystopia. Before looking in detail at the techniques employed in her doomsday scenarios and their impact, it is helpful to outline the reasons why Pausewang writes about controversial social issues and why she seeks to communicate her utopian message to young people.