Z for Zachariah
Puffin Teenage Fiction cover
|
|
| Author | Robert C. O'Brien |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Larry Rostant |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children, science fiction |
| Published | 1974 (Atheneum Books) |
| Media type | Hardback, paperback, e-book |
| Pages | 192 (276 in hardback version) |
| ISBN | (paperback) |
Z for Zachariah is an post-apocalyptic science-fiction novel by Robert C. O'Brien that was published posthumously in 1974. The name Robert C. O'Brien was the pen name used by Robert Leslie Conly. After the author's death in 1973, his wife Sally M. Conly and daughter Jane Leslie Conly completed the book guided by his notes. Set in the United States, the story is in the form of a diary written from the first-person perspective of sixteen-year-old Ann Burden, who has survived a nuclear war and nerve gas through living in a small valley with a self-contained weather system.
According to Sally Conly, Z for Zachariah was her husband's second novel intended for adults, following his 1972 science-fiction thriller A Report from Group 17. O'Brien had previously established himself as a children's writer with his novels The Silver Crown (1968) and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (1971). Z for Zachariah received a 1976 honor award from the Jane Addams Children's Book Award and the Edgar Award for the best mystery fiction in the juvenile category.
Ann Burden is a teenage girl who believes she is the last survivor of a nuclear war. Since her family's disappearance on a search expedition, she has lived alone on her farm in a small valley spared from radiation poisoning. A year after the war, a stranger in a radiation-proof suit approaches her valley. Afraid he might be dangerous, Ann hides in a cave and does not warn the man when he mistakenly bathes in a radioactive stream. When he falls ill, her fear of being alone forever leads her to reveal herself to help him. She discovers that the stranger is John Loomis, a chemist who helped design a prototype radiation-proof "safe-suit" at an underground lab near Ithaca, New York. Ann moves him into her house and fantasizes about eventually marrying him.
...
Wikipedia