The Wall

"I can allow myself to write the truth; all the people for whom I have lied throughout my life are dead... " writes the heroine of Marlen Haushofer's The Wall, a quite ordinary, unnamed middle-aged woman who awakens to find she is the last living human being. Surmising her solitude is the result of a too successful military experiment, she begins the terrifying work of not only survival, but self-renewal. The Wall is at once a simple and moving talk -- of potatoes and beans, of hoping for a calf, of counting matches, of forgetting the taste of sugar and the use of one's name -- and a disturbing meditation on 20th century history.


Genre: Science Fiction

"The Wall is a wonderful novel. It is not often that you can say only a woman could have written this book, but women in particular will understand the heroine's loving devotion to the details of making and keeping life, every day felt as a victory." - Doris Lessing