Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future

by Svetlana Alexievich, Arch Tait (Translator), Anna Gunin (Translator)

Overview

In April 1986 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781628974997
Publisher:	Deep Vellum Publishing
Publication date:	04/22/2025
Series:	Russian Literature
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Svetlana Alexievich was born in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, in 1948 and has spent most of her life in the Soviet Union and present-day Belarus, with prolonged periods of exile in Western Europe. Starting out as a journalist, she developed her own nonfiction genre, which gathers a chorus of voices to describe a specific historical moment. Her works include The Unwomanly Face of War (1985), Last Witnesses (1985), Zinky Boys (1990), Voices from Chernobyl (1997), and Secondhand Time (2013). She has won many international awards, including the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”

Read an Excerpt

I don’t know what to tell you about. Death or love? Or is it the same thing. What should I tell you about? . . .

Editorial Reviews

"Beautifully written . . . heart-breaking."—Arundhati Roy, Elle

From the Publisher