Chernobyl Prayer: Voices from Chernobyl (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Chernobyl is often remembered as a Russian incident, but 70% of the radioactivity fell upon Belarus, causing everything from the long-term poisoning of a quarter of the country’s farmland to an 64-fold increase in the rate of cancer. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.

The book relates the psychological and personal tragedy of the Chernobyl accident, and explores the experiences of individuals and how the disaster affected their lives.

This masterly new translation by Anna Gunin and Arch Tait retains the nerve and pulse of the Russian, conveying the angst and confusion of the narrators -- Serguei Alex. It is a catalogue of trauma – of lives which were disturbed by events so cataclysmic that the effects rippled around the whole planet. The author allows the words of those who lived, and many who still live, in the affected areas to tell their own story. Svetlana Alexievich spent years collecting testimonies from survivors, crafting their voices into a haunting oral history of fear, anger and uncertainty, but also dark humour and love. Alexievich assembles the previously silenced or unsung heroes into a chorus that has the power to move, stun and inspire awe.

Scientists estimate that it may take 20,000 years for the area around the plant to again become habitable.Alexievich’s documentary approach makes the experiences vivid, sometimes almost unbearably so – but it’s a remarkably democratic way of constructing a book.