Chernobyl Prayer
- Author Svetlana Alexievich
- Narrator Andrew Byron, Sasha Alexis
- Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
- Run Time 13 hours and 19 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Cold wars and proxy conflicts, Nuclear issues, Nuclear weapons, Oral history, Reportage, journalism or collected columns.
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
- A new translation of Voices from Chernobyl based on the revised text -
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.
'Absolutely essential and heartbreaking reading. There's a reason Ms. Alexievich won a Nobel Prize' - Craig Mazin, creator of the HBO / Sky TV series Chernobyl
'Beautifully written. . . heart-breaking' - Arundhati Roy, Elle
'One of the most humane and terrifying books I've ever read' - Helen Simpson, Observer
© Svetlana Alexievich 2016 (P) Penguin Audio 2021
Critics Review
-
A collage of oral testimony that turns into the psychobiography of a nation not shown on any map… The book leaves radiation burns on the brain
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
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
Daily Telegraph -
One of the most humane and terrifying books I’ve ever read
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
Guardian
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