Postman (novel)

Postman (orig. The Postman) is a 1985 science fiction novel by the American writer David Brin . The German first edition was published in 1989 under the title " Gordons Berufung " (translated by Jürgen Langowski).

action

USA in 2013: A nuclear war devastated the world and civilization fell . People live scattered from one another without hope.

Gordon Krantz wanders lonely through the devastated areas. When he comes to settlements, he gives a one-man show to get food. Then he walks on without a goal in mind.

But one day he finds shelter in a rusted post bus and finds the remains of a postman and some sacks of undelivered letters. After burying the bones, he puts on his uniform and picks up the mailbags to deliver the letters. At first he does this to get accommodation in a settlement, but after successfully delivering a few letters, he moves on with people's letters. When he was denied entry at the next settlement, he told residents that he was a postal worker from the resurrected United States. With this lie he sows hope in people and becomes a hero against his will. Now he is making an effort to restore the mail.

Awards

The novel won the Locus Award and was nominated for the Hugo Award and Nebula Award .

Others

The basic idea of ​​this novel, i.e. the protagonist who accidentally stumbles upon a dead postman after the apocalypse and starts delivering his letters, which leads to a resurgence of the postal service, is based on a supporting character from the novel Lucifer's Hammer by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven (1977).

filming

The book was created in 1997 by and starring Kevin Costner filmed . For dramaturgical reasons, parts of the plot have been left out and changed.

Translations

• Russian : "Почтальон" ("Postman"), 1995, 1998, 2002, 2004