Chernobyl Prayer: Voices from Chernobyl (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Review ------ A collage of oral testimony that turns into the psycho­biography of a nation not shown on any ... The book leaves radiation burns on the brain (Julian Barnes Guardian) Absolutely fantastic (Karl Ove Knausgaard) A beautifully written book, it's been years since I had to look away from a page because it was just too heart-breaking to go on. Give me beautiful prose and I'll follow you anywhere (Arundhati Roy Elle) A searing mix of eloquence and wordlessness... From her interviewees' monologues she creates history that the reader, at whatever distance from the events, can actually touch (Julian Evans Daily Telegraph) One of the most humane and terrifying books I've ever read (Helen Simpson Observer) Alexievich's documentary approach makes the experiences vivid, sometimes almost unbearably so - but it's a remarkably democratic way of constructing a book... When you consider the extent to which she has been traversing the irradiated landscape, you realise she has put herself on the line in a way very few authors ever do (Nicholas Lezard Guardian) A moving piece of polyphony, skilfully assembled from what must have been a huge mass of material... We are living in Alexievich's 'age of disasters'. This haunting book offers us at least some ways of thinking about that predicament (Lucy Hughes-Hallett New Statesman) This masterly new translation by Anna in and Arch Tait retains the nerve and pulse of the Russian (TLS) Alexievich assembles the previously silenced or unsung heroes into a chorus that has the power to move, stun and inspire awe. The result is a remarkable oral history, an essential read (Malcolm Forbes Herald Scotland) Not merely a work of documentation but of excavation, of revealed meaning. It is hard to imagine how anyone in the West will read these cantos of loss and not feel a sense of communion, of a shared humanity (Andrew Meier The Nation) From the Inside Flap -------------------- The startling history of the Chernobyl disaster by Svetlana Alexievich, the winner of the Nobel prize in literature 2015 - A new translation by Anna in and Arch Tait based on the revised text - On 26 April 1986, at 1.23am, a series of explosions shook the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Flames lit up the sky and radiation escaped to contaminate the land and poison the people for years to come. While officials tried to hush up the accident, Svetlana Alexievich spent years collecting testimonies from survivors - clean-up workers, residents, firefighters, resettlers, widows, orphans - crafting their voices into a haunting oral history of fear, anger and uncertainty, but also dark humour and love. A chronicle of the past and a warning for our nuclear future, Chernobyl Prayer shows what it is like to bear witness, and remember in a world that wants you to forget.