Voices from Chernobyl

Svetlana Alexievich · b. 1948 · Belarus

Originally Chernobylskaya Molitva (Russian) · translated by Keith Gessen

Why it matters

Firefighters' widows, evacuated villagers, and Chernobyl liquidators narrate the disaster and its aftermath in their own words, assembled into oral-history fiction. Alexievich's signature polyphonic method applied to catastrophe.

At a glance

Plainly transcribed oral testimony, structurally simple but emotionally demanding.