Accident (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Christa Wolf
- First Published: 1987
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: Late April, 1986, on the day that Europe learned of the Chernobyl disaster
- Setting: East Germany
- Principal Characters: The unnamed narrator, Her brother, His wife, Herr Gutjahr, The narrator’s youngest daughter, The narrator’s friend, Fritz Prochnow, Heinrich Plaack, The narrator’s eldest daughter, The narrator’s granddaughter
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Philosophical realism
- Subjects: Family or family life, Twentieth century, Nature, Brothers and sisters, 1980’s, Disasters, Germany or German people, Western Europe or western Europeans, Technology, Soviet Union or Soviets, Nuclear accidents
- Locales: East Germany
On April 26, 1986, the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl in the Ukraine region of the Soviet Union exploded, blowing hot graphite and reactor fuel fragments through the roof of the containment building; the reactor core continued to burn for days. A cloud of radioactive debris containing iodine 131 and cesium contaminated the air, vegetation, soil, water, and living population—both animal and human—throughout Europe. The Soviet authorities did not immediately release information about the nuclear disaster to the rest of the world. It was only after scientists in Scandinavia measured...
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