Die Wolke

In 1987 Gudrun Pausewang responded to the Chernobyl disaster by constructing her anti-nuclear novel "Die Wolke", around a fictitious accident in a real German nuclear power station at Grafenrheinfeld, Pausewang did not find it easy to write such a horrific scenario: "Um ein Haar hatte ich etwa nach der Halfte aufgehort weiterzuschreiben", she writes, and yet she completed the novel. The book is part of a series and contains the text of "Die Wolke", an introduction on the background to the incident, notes and a follow-up section in German, the "Arbeitsteil", which is intended to enhance language skills.