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 dangers of nuclear energy. Her books have been translated into English and received international recognition and awards.
Biography
Pausewang was born in Wichstadtl, Eastern Bohemia, a member of the German minority in Czechoslovakia. Her father was Siegfried Pausewang, and she was the eldest of six siblings. After the Nazis annexed the area, she became a Jungmädel at age 10 and remained in the organisation until age 17. Her father died in World War II, and her mother fled with the children to the West settling in Wiesbaden. Pausewang studied pedagogy and taught in German primary schools , then from 1956 for Germany's foreign school services in South America, in Chile, Venezuela and Columbia. She returned to Germany with her son in 1972. She lived in Schlitz, Hesse, where she taught until her retirement in 1989, and where she wrote most of her novels. After her retirement, she achieved her Ph.D. with a dissertation entitled "Vergessene Jugendschriftsteller der Erich-Kästner-Generation. Pausewang wrote around 100 novels. In 2011, she named as her four main topics:
"We should never experience another war"
"We should never have another dictatorship"
"The poor conditions in South America"
"Protecting nature".
She wrote her novel Die Wolke in 1987, after the Chernobyl disaster, using information that the organisation "Ärzte gegen den Atomtod" had published at the end of the 1970s. In 1988, it was awarded the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis, the Kurd Laßwitz Award and the Deutscher Science Fiction Preis in the category Best Novel. It was translated as Fall-Out by Patricia Crampton and published in 1994. She wrote in 2011, after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, that she was determined to take her readers serious regardless of age, and she wanted to warn of dangers of her time." Her novel Dark Hours was included in the New York Public Library's 2007 list of Books for the Teen Age Reader, and in the Texas Library Association's 2007–2008 Tayshas High School Reading List, and received the Silver Medal in Juvenile/Young Adult Fiction from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. , then Minister of Family, at the 2017 ceremony Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis Pausewang was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Several schools were named after her, and she received the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for her life's work in 2017. Her books Die Wolke and Die letzten Kinder von Schewenhorn became part of required reading in schools. From 2016, she lived in a senior citizens' home in Baunach, where she died on 23 January 2020.
Die Kinder- und Jugendliteratur des Nationalsozialismus als Instrument ideologischer Beeinflussung. Liedertexte – Erzählungen und Romane – Schulbücher – Zeitschriften – Bühnenwerke, published as Gudrun Wilcke
Books in English
Fall-Out, a translation of Die Wolke, translated by Patricia Crampton, published by Viking.
The Final Journey, a translation of Reise im August by Patricia Crampton, published by Viking and Puffin Books.
