Fall-Out     by Gudrun Pausewang, Translated by P Crampton Original title: Die Wolke Original language: German Published by Viking Children's Books Pub. Date: 1995 Format: Hardcover, 176 pages Dimensions: (in inches): 8.07 x 0.78 x 5.32 ISBN: 0670861049 List Price: $13.99 Buy online from Amazon.co.uk for £9.99 Published by Viking Pub. Date: 1995 Format: 160 pages List Price: £9.99 Not available for ordering

Gudrun Pausewang’s story of a nuclear explosion at a power station appeared in 1987, a year after the real nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. Fallout was intended for teenagers and won an important prize as a work of literature for young people. How much it is a young person’s book is questionable, although the central figure, Janna-Berta, is a schoolgirl in her early teens, left in sole charge of her younger brother while her parents are away close to the centre of the power station explosion which kills them. Although not a first-person narrative, there is a circular effect to the novel, which concludes with Janna-Berta relating her experiences (that is, the substance of the book) to her blinkered grandparents, who have been out of the country, but who always asserted that the Green Party were an uncultivated lot and that such a disaster could not happen, and if it did, the authorities would soon be in control. In fact when the nuclear power station explodes and a wide area has to be evacuated, chaos soon breaks out. Janna-Berta heads away with her bewildered little brother, who is soon killed on a busy road, and she goes on alone in the mass of people desperately trying to save themselves. The veneer of civilisation is very thin indeed. Caught in the contaminated rain, she is even turned away in fear when she asks for a drink of water. We also hear of the possibility that the police turned guns on those caught in the immediate area to prevent them leaving. Later, in a radiation hospital, after a Turkish friend Ayse has died, Janna-Berta expresses her (impotent) rage at those who sanctioned the nuclear policy by hurling a stone figurine at the door behind a visiting politician. Unhappy with an aunt in Hamburg who seems to want to suppress it all (Janna-Berta even refuses to wear a wig), she leaves and joins another aunt, Almut, in a kind of commune for the contaminated Hibakushi (the name they take from the survivors of Hiroshima), now separated from a terrified society-at-large. Eventually she returns to the field where her brother’s body still lies and buries him, then goes back to the family home to explain it all to an incredulous grandmother.

The novel has flaws: the style is sometimes heavy-handed, and those who are not actively against nuclear power are somehow linked with the Nazis. The child’s-eye-view of events cuts out any political responsibility, and the worst-case scenario is presented without consideration of any alternatives (to the situation or indeed to nuclear power itself). But it is a moving and passionate book, reacting to Chernobyl and Three-Mile-Island, not only indicating the dangers inherent in nuclear power, but also showing us quite clearly (the narrative pulls no punches) that in extreme circumstances the whole social fabric can crumble and break down very easily indeed. The book is a warning.

‘«And — they say that anyone who tried to escape was shot. With machine guns.»

Janna thought of what Aissa had once told her.

«Do you think it’s true?» Janna asked.

«Yes,» said Almut. «They tried to keep it secret, but that kind of thing can’t be kept secret.»

«And why —»

«They say that the people in restricted zone one were so contaminated that they were a danger to others. And they say they had no chance of survival anyway. They would have died slowly and in agony.»

After a long pause Janna asked: «But the police and soldiers, how could they —?»

«Human beings are capable of anything,» said Almut’