The Last Children of Schewenborn

Last updated
The Last Children of Schewenborn
Last children of Schewenborn cover.jpg
German edition cover
Author Gudrun Pausewang
CountryGermany
LanguageGerman
GenreDrama
Publication date
1983
Media typePrint (Hardback and paperback)

The Last Children of Schewenborn (German: Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn) is a 1983 novel by Gudrun Pausewang, depicting life in rural Germany in the aftermath of a nuclear war.

Contents

While the story is entirely fictional, Pausewang confirmed in the book's epilogue that she created its main setting, the small town of Schewenborn, in the image of Schlitz in East Hesse, where she herself used to live.

Plot summary

The plot is set within the framework of a Cold War scenario very similar to the geopolitical situation at the time of writing. It is told from the perspective of Roland, a 12-year-old boy from Bonames (a district of Frankfurt), who travels with his parents and sisters to visit his grandparents in Schewenborn.

During their journey, they are surprised by a nuclear attack. As emergency response systems fail to activate and no humanitarian aid reaches them, the survivors have to assume that the whole of Germany, or even the entire civilized world, may have been destroyed. During the course of the next few months, it becomes clear that Frankfurt, Berlin and major German cities, as well as the adjacent Netherlands and Czechoslovakia were also targeted, given the arrival of seriously burnt and radiation-scarred refugees from those areas. The question of whether this is actually the truth is only resolved by the end of the novel.

The family finds refuge in the house of the grandparents, who were in Fulda at the time of the nuclear explosion and presumably died there. Shortly afterwards, Roland's mother takes in a young brother and sister who had been made orphans by the bombs.

The later chapters of the story describe the weeks, months and years after the nuclear attack, and are almost exclusively set in Schewenborn.

The Last Children of Schewenborn does not have a happy ending. One by one, members of Roland's family, including his new foster-siblings, birth sisters, younger brother, mother and a severely impaired sibling, die of radiation sickness, childbirth and uncontrollable epidemic disease given the absence of food and medicine, as do the village's other surviving adult inhabitants, orphaning any consequent children born after the nuclear holocaust. By the end of the book, only Roland, his father, and a small group of boys and girls who represent the titular last children remain alive, and the final paragraphs suggest that they, too, will perish, given the prevalence of cancer, uncurable pandemic disease, food shortages and nuclear fallout in the post-apocalyptic environment. Poignantly, Roland implies that the children probably will not survive to adulthood, given the widespread presence of genetic damage and consequent impaired health amongst them. [1]

Major themes

The book is written as a cautionary tale in its clear intent to deliver a stern warning to both civilians and world leaders, similar to other dystopian literature.

It is aimed at a juvenile audience in particular, consequentially becoming part of recommended reading lists in several West German states, mostly directed at teenagers around the eighth grade. [2]

A similar theme, also specifically targeted at a younger audience, appears in Pausewang's other great literary success, Die Wolke . Both books convey a feeling of dark, impending danger commonly shared by members of the German Environmentalist Movement of the 1980s. [3]

Translations into English

Given 1980s Cold War anxieties about the possible imminence of nuclear war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the book was translated into English in both Canada and the United Kingdom. [4] It was also translated into French, Spanish and Danish.

Awards and nominations

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gudrun Ensslin</span> German far-left militant (1940–1977)

Gudrun Ensslin was a German far-left terrorist and founder of the West German far-left militant group Red Army Faction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clemens Brentano</span> German poet and novelist (1778–1842)

Clemens Wenzeslaus Brentano was a German poet and novelist, and a major figure of German Romanticism. He was the uncle, via his brother Christian, of Franz and Lujo Brentano.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gustav Heinemann</span> President of West Germany from 1969 to 1974

Gustav Walter Heinemann was a German politician who was President of West Germany from 1969 to 1974. He served as mayor of Essen from 1946 to 1949, West German Minister of the Interior from 1949 to 1950, and Minister of Justice from 1966 to 1969.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gustav Ludwig Hertz</span> German physicist (1887–1975)

Gustav Ludwig Hertz was a German experimental physicist and Nobel Prize winner for his work on inelastic electron collisions in gases, and a nephew of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Lortzing</span> German opera composer

Gustav Albert Lortzing was a German composer, librettist, actor and singer. He is considered to be the main representative of the German Spieloper, a form similar to the French opéra comique, which grew out of the Singspiel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katja Lange-Müller</span> German writer (born 1951)

Katja Lange-Müller is a German writer living in Berlin. Her works include several short stories and novellas, radio dramas, and dramatic works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Zuckmayer</span> German writer and playwright (1896–1977)

Carl Zuckmayer was a German writer and playwright. His older brother was the pedagogue, composer, conductor, and pianist Eduard Zuckmayer.

Guðrún is one of the most frequently given female names in Iceland. In 2004, it was ranked first before Anna and Sigríður.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schlitz, Hesse</span> Town in Hesse, Germany

Schlitz is a small town in the Vogelsbergkreis in eastern Hesse, Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erhard Eppler</span> German politician (1926–2019)

Erhard Eppler was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and founder of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). He studied English, German and history in Frankfurt, Bern and Tübingen, achieved a PhD and worked as a teacher. He met Gustav Heinemann in the late 1940s, who became a role model. Eppler was a member of the Bundestag from 1961 to 1976. He was appointed Minister for Economic Cooperation first in 1968 during the grand coalition of Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU) and Willy Brandt (SPD), continuing under Chancellor Brandt in 1969 and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (SPD) in 1974, when he stepped down.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">F. K. Waechter</span> German cartoonist, author and playwright

Friedrich Karl Waechter was a renowned German cartoonist, author, and playwright.

Nikolaus Riehl was a German nuclear physicist. He was head of the scientific headquarters of Auergesellschaft. When the Russians entered Berlin near the end of World War II, he was invited to the Soviet Union, where he stayed for 10 years. For his work on the Soviet atomic bomb project, he was awarded a Stalin Prize, Lenin Prize, and Order of the Red Banner of Labor. When he was repatriated to Germany in 1955, he chose to go to West Germany, where he joined Heinz Maier-Leibnitz on his nuclear reactor staff at Technische Hochschule München (THM); Riehl made contributions to the nuclear facility Forschungsreaktor München (FRM). In 1961 he became an ordinarius professor of technical physics at THM and concentrated his research activities on solid state physics, especially the physics of ice and the optical spectroscopy of solids.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gudrun Pausewang</span> German writer (1928–2020)

Gudrun Pausewang, less commonly known by her married name, Gudrun Wilcke, was a German author of children's and young adult literature. She was known for books such as The Last Children of Schewenborn and Die Wolke which were made part of German school canons. Among her primary topics were work for peace and protection of the environment, namely warning of the alleged dangers of nuclear energy. Her books have been translated into English and received international recognition and awards.

The Buxtehude Bull is an award for youth literature, established in 1971 by Winfried Ziemann, a local book merchant from Buxtehude, a Hanseatic City located in the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. The town council took over the sponsorship of the award in 1981. The award is given annually to the best children's or young-adults' book published in German in the preceding year. The writer is presented with a small steel statue of the bull Ferdinand, from the popular work The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, and also receives a monetary prize of €5,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans Keilson</span>

Hans Alex Keilson was a German-Dutch novelist, poet, psychoanalyst and child psychologist. He was best known for his novels set during the Second World War, during which he was an active member of the Dutch resistance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zsuzsa Bánk</span> German writer (born 1965)

Zsuzsa Bánk is a German writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hermann Kasack</span> German writer

Hermann Robert Richard Eugen Kasack was a German writer. He is best known for his novel Die Stadt hinter dem Strom. Kasack was a pioneer of using the medium broadcast for literature. He published radio plays also under the pen names Hermann Wilhelm and Hermann Merten.

<i>Die Wolke</i>

Die Wolke is a German novel for young adults by German author Gudrun Pausewang, published in 1987. The story was written after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, with a 14-year-old girl having to deal with the consequences of a fictional similar disaster in Germany. It was translated into English by Patricia Crampton, published in 1997, as Fall-Out. Die Wolke, which received several awards, became a popular book for reading in class and was adapted for film and stage, has been regarded as Pausewang's signature work.

Henning Löhlein, is an illustrator working in Bristol. His work has appeared in many media outlets including The Guardian, The Observer, The Financial Times and he has illustrated over thirty books so far. He has drawn his distinctive illustrations for authors of children's books from Britain and Germany, including Werner Holzwarth, Katja Reider, Manfred Mai, Gudrun Pausewang. Since 1996 he has been selected every year for the exhibition of the German Cartoon Prize.

References

  1. Pausewang, Gudrun (1983). The Last Children of Schewenborn. Ravensburger. ISBN   978-3473580071.
  2. Liere, Judith (27 February 2014). "Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn: Horror-Schocker-Kinderliteratur". Der Spiegel (in German). Retrieved 24 January 2020.
  3. Willner, Jenny (2021-04-03). "Die letzten Zombies von Schewenborn. Gudrun Pausewang und die enigmatischen Signifikanten der Friedensbewegung". The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory. 96 (2): 177–194. doi:10.1080/00168890.2021.1897776. ISSN   0016-8890. S2CID   235396180.
  4. Gudrun Pausewang: The Last Children: London: Walker: 1990: ISBN 9780744517507: The Last Children: London: Julia McRae Books: 1988: ISBN 97808620304203: 1989: ISBN 9780862034023: The Last Children of Schevenborn: Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books: 1988: ISBN 9780888332363