Voices from Chernobyl

It's a brilliant book - the witnesses to the events at Chernobyl and its aftermath speak of what happened to them in their own words, although I have to wonder if Ms. Alexeievich edited some statements to make them more coherent. She seems to have chosen the statements from people who are the most philosophical, and therefore the most interesting. I should have realized before now how much the disaster still plagues Ukraine and Belarus and will plague them for centuries, how badly the Soviet Government handled the situation, and how much it eventually contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Absolutely profound. So many of the stories described Chernobyl as this strange combination of beauty and horror. This book is the same.

The most haunting book I’ve ever read. Alexievich is a master.

The raw truth (and it is raw and heartbreaking) of the dead and survivors of the aftermath of the Chernobyl power station disaster. The soviet people, with incredible bravery and sacrifice, saved Europe from a much worse disaster by putting out the fires and plugging the exposed reactor (almost by hand to hand combat with it). As with the 'great war', the dead point accusing fingers at the world for this disaster.

......................................" ...no one knows what Chernobyl is.".....Valentina Panasevich, wife of a liquidator."I used to think I could understand everything and express everything."........Svetlana Aleksievich, AuthorAlmost anything I could say would not do this powerful book justice.It needs to be read.......................................

This book collects the words of people whose lives were affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster: People who were evacuated. People who weren't evacuated. People who, seeking refuge from war and having nowhere else to go, moved into contaminated areas abandoned by everyone else. Soldiers who were sent in, inadequately protected, to clean up afterward. Family members of people afflicted by radiation poisoning, or birth defects, or cancer. Scientists who tried to warn people, and one who lives with the shame of having trusted the authorities and looked the other way. There are long, rambling stories and short, bitter outbursts. Some are sophisticated and philosophical, others inarticulately emotional. Many of the most personal narratives are heartbreaking and horrifying, but, taken all together, they also paint an enlightening portrait of what it was like to be a citizen of the Soviet Union in 1986, and of the all too fallible ways in which human beings and human institutions can react to disasters that they don't fully understand. It's a painful book to read, but a very worthwhile one, and the way that Alexievich presents these transcripts, without context or comment, somehow just makes them all the more powerful.