First published in Germany in 1968, The Wall follows a woman who one morning realizes she is trapped alone behind an invisible barrier--and is evidently the last human left alive. Her “report” details her inner conflict as she tries to hang on to her humanity in a post-human world, while welcoming her unlooked-for freedom from the absurd, needless anxieties of civilization. Haushofer’s slow, deliberate prose and the narrative's long, continuous format perfectly match the rhythm of the narrator’s new life. In contrast to the pointlessly harried pace of existence pre-cataclysm, now the cycles of nature run their course, sorting and weeding out whatever isn’t necessary. The narrator details both that continual process as well as her reflections on the toll of humanity’s senseless brutality.