Voices from Chernobyl : The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster - Svetlana Alexievich

Voices from Chernobyl

The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

By: Svetlana Alexievich, Keith Gessen (Translator)

Hardcover | 28 June 2005

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An account of the worst nuclear reactor accident in history from the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Voices from Chernobyl is the first book to present personal accounts of the tragedy. Journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown-from innocent citizens to firefighters to those called in to clean up the disaster--and their stories reveal the fear, anger, and uncertainty with which they still live. Composed of interviews in monologue form, Voices from Chernobyl is a crucially important work of immense force, unforgettable in its emotional power and honesty and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner.

Industry Reviews
"A chorus of fatalism, stoic bravery, and black, black humor is sounded in this haunting oral history . . . The result is an endelible X-ray of the Russian soul." -Publishers Weekly
"Grim and grotesque, the stories accrete across the pages like the radionuclides lodged in the bodies of those who survived." --Nicholas Confessore, The New York Times Book Review
"Shocking accounts of life in a poisoned world. And what quintessentially human stories these are, as each distinct voice expresses anger, fear, ignorance, stoicism, valor, compassion, and love. Alexievich put her own health at risk to gather these invaluable frontline testimonies, which she has transmuted into a haunting and essential work of literature that one can only hope documents a never-to-be-repeated catastrophe." -Booklist (Starred Review)
"Svetlana Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl (Dalkey Archive) is a collage of oral testimony that turns into the psychobiography of a nation not shown on any map: the poisoned territory where live Belarusians, Ukrainians and Russians who are forever changed by the catastophe. The book - by this year's Nobelist - leaves radiation burns on the brain." -Julian Barnes, The Guardian, Best Books of the Year
"Svetlana Alexievich's remarkable book, recording the lives and deaths of her fellow Belarussians, has at last made it into American bookstores. (...) Hers is a peerless collection of testimony." -Andrew Meier, The Nation

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Paperback

Published: 1st July 2019

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