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.

A moving collection of stories about the impact of Chernobyl, not only on a physical level but also its psychological repercussions on the Soviet population. What Chernobyl meant, the emotions, the losses, the feeling of heroism, and the lies disseminated by the government. Each desperate story is captured by Svetlana with the most wonderful narrative. (Translated from Spanish)

For a long time, I had this book on my to-read list, but I lacked the courage, mainly because I already knew it was not going to be an easy read. I can't say it's a book to enjoy, but it was definitely worth reading.

In college, it was a mandatory topic, and while I've read a lot about it, mostly the technical aspects, the professors briefly discussed the health problems that arose afterward, but when you put names and faces to the people, it becomes so much more meaningful.

Therefore, the book is nothing more than testimonies from all the people who experienced the Chernobyl catastrophe firsthand. From liquidators, firefighters, soldiers, scientists, miners, dosimetrists, the wives of all of them, and one of the hardest parts to read... from children, and the other part, those who have no voice but suffered as if I had heard them... the animals, especially the domesticated ones.

There are testimonies that break you, that force you to stop reading to vent because it hurts; you feel helpless or angry about the terrible government that wanted to minimize everything. People didn't know what was happening; they didn't understand; they didn't know the extent of the problem, and many who did knew preferred not to see it.

Most felt the need to fulfill their duty, regardless of whether their lives were at stake; what mattered was not losing their party membership card.

A very well-written book, sometimes raw, but nothing compared to how it was in reality. If you're interested in the subject, I recommend it. There is also a miniseries on HBO called Chernobyl that is also worth watching. (Translated from Spanish)

#sannobelguillo

4,001/5 ⭐ we continue with the touches...

We could award Svetlana Alexievich for many things:

For her bravery, in offering us texts without reservations being an author on the fringes of mother Russia.

For staying alive, given the high number of heart attacks suffered by those who disturb such democratic governments.

Even for the great journalistic and human value that her books possess.

But a Nobel Prize for Literature, I don’t see it.

Voices from Chernobyl is a compilation of testimonies from those who lived through the nuclear power plant accident firsthand.

The vast majority belong to men and women who did not want to leave their homes or who returned to them skipping military checks once evacuated.

Beyond the explosion and its nightmarish scene, the author captures, through voices, what their lives were like from then on.
And this new normality sends chills down the spine.

Men who were sent to certain death, unprotected and completely uninformed, to try to eliminate a radioactive leak that would take their lives, in a slow and horrific progressive death.

Forests and orchards that, interestingly, flourish lush as humans distance themselves from them, but that do so while contaminated.

Wives who ignore prohibitions, risking their own lives just to accompany their loved ones in their final days.

Evacuees who suffer social rejection wherever they go for being marked as highly contaminating toxic beings.

One of the things that struck me the most is how everyone can assimilate the devastation of a war yet are unable to do so with something that cannot be seen, smelled, or touched, but that completely alters their small known universe.

A tragedy seen in a different way and narrated by tired, torn voices with a deep wound that will never stop oozing.

A work where the author only intervenes to organize and refine the accounts, but without adding any opinion or commentary.

The protagonists are them and their voices that speak.

A painful essay about lives that were shattered regardless of the fact that some still breathe today. (Translated from Spanish)

MINIREVIEW ~ [No Spoilers]
Voices from Chernobyl - Svetlana Alexievich

"Dying is not hard, it just scares you."

How to begin to talk about this book? It has been one of the hardest I have read. The stories are heartbreaking. I cried, I cried a lot.

I loved this book because it tells the story of Chernobyl beyond political and historical realms as such, beyond statistics and numbers, but it tells the real story, the background, the people, the time. It is the most human book I have ever read.

I loved the journalistic work the author did, not only to collect the testimonies but also the emotions of the people she interviewed. There is even a space for a person who shouted at her in the street, who had feelings of resentment towards journalists. She was able to convey the stories on paper.

I think it is a very good read, to reflect, to understand, and to grow as a human being. Being grateful is very important because we can breathe peacefully, eat peacefully, because we are still in our home, because our houses are not buried and because we don’t have to have a dosimeter to measure radiation in the bread... Being grateful because we are not afraid of air, nor water, nor earth.

A read that tears the soul and will make you cry. However, you will also learn, you will understand new things, and I am sure that when you finish reading, you will feel that you will carry a piece of them with you forever. (Translated from Spanish)

Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich. It is the book I chose for my literary challenge in April. Reading a Nobel.

It took me a month to read it because it has to be taken in small sips, like ice-cold water; one must read, pause, reflect, and let it settle. While reading, I remembered the mentality of the Russian people accustomed to suffering. Fortunately, it is presented without dramatization, and it is a story told in thousands of voices, the voices that suffered. Chernobyl and those who are still suffering from it.

Sometimes I had to stop because in a simple way, it tears you apart from the inside. What was Chernobyl? Many people still ask themselves this; the human failure of a power that believed it was indestructible, the decline of a system that governed the people, having replaced the father figure, the tsar, with the Soviet, fighting with the same fervor, living and having faith in the system. In Belarus, everything fell apart at once, and they are disoriented—why? Why did it happen?

I feel orphaned; I finished it today; there are still many things that need to settle, things I have to piece together, but just as when I saw the concentration camps, I said that everyone should go to one in their lifetime, I believe this is a book we must read. I recommend it. (Translated from Spanish)

May 14, 2023 - January 25, 2024
"Life is wonderful, but damn, it's so short..."

It took me a long time to finish this book, yet there were so many moments and experiences narrated that left me with a great mix of feelings. I have always been drawn to the topic of Chernobyl, and when I learned about the existence of this book, I knew I had to read it. The truth is that I enjoyed it quite a bit, and I loved the essence of each person telling a bit of their story. The last chapter broke my heart ? (Translated from Spanish)

A story that leaves us indifferent. Real testimonies of an event that marked a before and after, not only in the lives of Ukrainians but also in those of all Europeans. Highly recommended. (Translated from Spanish)

The most important thing about a disaster is not the economic losses or the political instability it may generate, but the human cost it entails—not just the number of deaths (as a statistical figure) but the damage caused to each life that was directly and indirectly involved. That is what Svetlana does in this book: she gives a human face to the catastrophe of Chernobyl.

The book is narrated from different perspectives: men, women, children, the elderly, military and civilians, scientists and artists—every possible perspective under a constant: they all speak from their individuality, their personal experience, and their process of catharsis, contributing to provide the reader not only with a wide view of the tragedy but also recognizing the feelings and projections (or the destruction of their life projects) from that point onward.

It is a painful, heart-wrenching, and shocking read that not only questions the various decisions made at the time by the former USSR but also the consequences of those decisions, their similarities to the current reality (regardless of where you are from), the need to express what happened, and the acknowledgment of a truth that was denied to them despite being the reality they faced.

It is neither easy nor quick to digest this book (it took me quite a while to finish because many stories left me thinking for days), but it is introspective, profound, and so well-constructed that one can empathize with each story despite the diversity of positions. The ones that impacted me the most were ironically the first (on which the HBO series "Chernobyl" was mainly based) and the last story as a masterful closing to this arduous and valuable exercise of giving voice to those who were silenced. (Translated from Spanish)

This is a book that is essential to read in order to understand our time and what it truly means to be human. It is both wonderful and terrible; perhaps the best way to summarize this book is the role the journalist assumes as a conductor of a choir. She has given a place to each voice, to each human being whose stance or experience toward this tragedy represents all those voices we cannot hear. The order, the sequence, the capacity for active listening and documenting these testimonies is masterful. It brings a human scale to a situation that is often approached with so little empathy and respect. Speaking of Chernobyl, it ultimately leaves many fundamental questions at both the individual and collective levels. 2022: March Reading women (Translated from Spanish)

I'm still reading it, but I can already say that it's essential reading. Now more than ever, it challenges us. That those voices may be heard someday... (Translated from Spanish)

A tough and compelling book written by one of the most recognized and committed authors in the world. Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexiévich has gathered within the pages of this book hundreds of testimonies and accounts from victims and witnesses of the Chernobyl catastrophe.

The author gives voice to countless individuals who have not only suffered firsthand the consequences of a nuclear disaster. They also endure stigmatization from a society that shuns its fellow citizens and, bureaucratically, suffers like no one else from political, economic, and structural changes. In a no-man's land, already punished by a tradition of wars, where no one assumes the consequences and where all kinds of abuses and mistakes have been committed: the prevalence of political decisions over scientific and necessary ones, the concealment of information from at-risk citizens, deception of military and technical personnel, plunder and theft of contaminated materials...

As I said, these are tough testimonies. Extremely tough. And they make us reflect on our mistakes and on what really underpins our society. On the fragility of our environment, of life itself. And, more importantly, it places our temporal scale regarding our planet into perspective. This catastrophe could be compared to many others, whether natural or man-made. We could quantify and compare them using the number of human victims, devastated areas, material damages, evacuated zones, and the economic resources employed to mitigate them. Wars, natural disasters, spills... But if Chernobyl teaches us anything and this book by Alexiévich demonstrates, it is that as a society we will never again recover or know the zone as it once was. It will never again be a safe or habitable territory. And when I say never, I mean that it is not a matter of 200 years, nor 2000. We are talking about thousands of years for the disaster to no longer be lethal or dangerous to life. And that, on our time scale, is never.

The accounts touch on many topics. Obviously, the accident itself and how it changed their lives. There is the story of widows, mothers, and some of the last "liquidators" who were still alive in 1997 when the book was published. It is estimated that a total of 600,000 people performed cleanup, decontamination, and containment work. All of them received radiation in varying amounts, often with inadequate or non-existent equipment. The mortality rate is staggering. There are also testimonies from some scientists who knew from the very beginning what an accident like this could mean for life and describe the hurdles and problems they faced to make their voices heard. We are in the final years of communism, the Cold War, and the arrival of Perestroika. These significant political moments played a decisive role (for better or worse) in managing this enormous global crisis. Yes, global, because this accident put half of Europe and part of Asia in jeopardy, with emissions even detected in Japan just days after the accident. And it highlighted not only the infrastructure of a nation like the Soviet one but also demonstrated that nuclear energy could wipe out life on Earth overnight.

Testimonies from mortally ill children born after the accident, elderly women resisting leaving their villages, relatives feeling ashamed or proud of their Soviet spirit or of their family member's heroism, without which the disaster would have been even greater. And it's true, because if it weren't for those heroes who exposed and risked their lives (and often, their families' without knowing it) to collect the contaminated graphite debris, open the blocked water channels in the plant to prevent another explosion, or dig a tunnel in a hurry below the reactor to cool and secure the subsoil so that it wouldn’t collapse into the underground aquifers, we might not be here today. The disaster would have been so catastrophic that the world would be completely different today, almost forty years later.

The voice of Svetlana Alexiévich is barely perceptible. It is only the testimonies of other people, the voices of Chernobyl, that appear in this book. Except in two instances. Almost at the beginning, we have a chapter where the author interviews herself and explains the reason for this book and how her worldview changed after Chernobyl. The second instance is at the end of the book, in the epilogue, where she provides information about the phenomenon of nuclear tourism occurring in the area (I suppose more intensified now after the HBO series). (Translated from Spanish)

It is a book that portrays a tragedy from the perspective of those who directly suffered it. The brief accounts it comprises are moving, painful, and astonishing. Beyond the event itself, it sparked my interest in learning more about Russian culture; some traits - strongly marked by communism and wars - appear scattered throughout the pages in the voice of cultured citizens who naturally quote writers, philosophers, and politicians, and who conceive of man as a collective, humanity as a unit, which in extreme cases leads to a disregard for individual experience and freedom. (Translated from Spanish)

Great journalistic work on one of the greatest catastrophes that humanity has suffered.

The writer Svetlana Alexievich has gathered in these pages an important collection of witnesses, statements, press headlines, or descriptions of images, as disastrous as they are unforgettable in consequence regarding that explosion at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Chernobyl back in 1986.

It contains first-person accounts of experiences and memories that are quite uncomfortable to digest... (Translated from Spanish)

A very harsh reading that touches your soul. (Translated from Spanish)

A very harsh reading in the best chronicle style, narrated through countless monologues from people who were there before, during, and after the Chernobyl accident. The phrase "reality surpasses fiction" fits perfectly in this case. An extensive book but without waste; apparently, the translation of this title arrived several years after its completion in 1997. The Nobel Prize awarded to the author in 2015 was well deserved.

In my particular case, I read it while following along with the HBO series, which I also recommend if you wish to delve deeper into the topic; it's very well made.

I really liked the fact that the testimonies not only discuss the explosion of the reactor but also express a whole culture of Russian heroism that represented the Soviet Union during those years and, much to their regret, led them to conceal data and interfere with investigations. One would have to place oneself in 1986 to try to understand it.

Without further ado, highly recommended.

Happy reading. (Translated from Spanish)

Voices of Chernobyl is a mix of essay and narrative. It does not tell us how the accident itself happened; it is a series of testimonies from different sectors of society that experienced the terrible nuclear accident directly or indirectly.
They are monologues from liquidators, historians, biologists, nurses, people who lived or live in the affected areas... They even include children, "the children of Chernobyl." The victims not only suffer the consequences of the disaster but also the stigmatization from society.
A land already burdened by a history of wars where no one takes responsibility, with political decisions overriding scientific ones and concealment of information from citizens.
It makes us reflect on the fragility of our environment and our own lives. (Translated from Spanish)

I could see a reality that was foreign to me. Excellent. (Translated from Spanish)

"Chernobyl has filled my life and my soul has expanded. I feel pain. The secret key. You start talking after the pain and beautiful words come out. I have said these things... with these words, only when I have loved."
Nina Prokhorovna Kovaliova.
Wife of a liquidator.

Talking about Voices of Chernobyl is talking about the testimony of people whose lives were inexplicably changed at that moment amidst the opacity, manipulation, and indifference of their government.

People who, coming out of the horror of war, found more suffering, more pain, and irreparable losses, and who, even in the midst of it, find the courage to allow us to know an invaluable legacy: their thoughts, their feelings, and their reflections.

I dare say this is not a read for everyone as it is not a chronology, a novel, or a story in itself. It is an essay of various monologues from those who lived through the devastation of Chernobyl and bore its consequences for years.

Personally, I will say it is a gem of a book, and there are moments when you need to close your eyes for a few seconds to continue because many of them, amidst pain, find such beautiful words that convey their reflections and you can feel their suffering.

Not forgetting the pain of all of them, letting their stories endure and be remembered, is the greatest tribute we can give them.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. (Translated from Spanish)

One could say it is a book: overwhelming, raw, and even painful but necessary.

It is more than a book; it is the testimony of a tragedy that made history, exposing situations such as corruption, lack of honesty, and vulnerability. What is narrated here makes us see that we will never be prepared for catastrophes, especially those caused by negligence.

Svetlana Alexievich had the sensitivity to capture on paper the testimonies of those who lived through that tragedy. While reading the book, it is almost impossible not to empathize with the narration; these are the living voices of an event that has not been forgotten, being one of the greatest nuclear disasters in human history. Moreover, it conveys the despair, helplessness, and pain of people who, without imagining it, would lose everything.

To read "Voices from Chernobyl," it is necessary to find an intimate space as well as an open space where the reader has privacy since it is a very painful and intimate reading that requires a lot of fresh air.

The book consists of interviews where, starting from the first monologue: “A solitary human voice,” we understand that the book deals with unique stories, of a tragedy seen from a closer perspective, from the first person.

"Voices from Chernobyl" is a collection of testimonies from many people who were or are involved in different ways with the tragedy. Each interview is written as a monologue; Svetlana only leaves the voice of the interviewee. And it is impressive: the reader has the sensation of distinguishing the tones, feelings, and personalities of the characters.

Each voice is valuable. In the book, we hear the anecdotes of farmers, children, politicians, scientists, military personnel, housewives; and each of their stories is relevant.

Svetlana makes us reflect on political and social interests, ethics and morality, the human capacity to adapt to “impossible” conditions.

"Voices from Chernobyl" is a harsh reality check; it has much tragedy, but also humor and hope. (Translated from Spanish)

A series of monologues from people who lived through Chernobyl from their perspective is a worthy and well-deserved literary work. (Translated from Spanish)

A book that leaves you anything but indifferent. The HBO miniseries closely follows the book and reflects many things; obviously, the book is more detailed and immerses you very well in what was happening in Chernobyl at the time and after the explosion. (Translated from Spanish)

Exceptional portrait of the silenced voices of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Through the author's unique style, which earned her the Nobel Prize in Literature, we will explore in three different parts the past, the present (1997), and the future of those who were caught up in the nuclear accident in one way or another, with themes that intertwine.

Pages are filled with all kinds of people who were connected to the event: cleaners, their wives, doctors, nurses, scientists, politicians, military personnel, photographers, journalists, and many more.

From the book, we can draw various common points, threads that connect the stories told by people, starting with the Soviet sentiment that makes them think about community rather than the individual, the Eastern fatalism of the Russians, or the need to be the hero of the community born from an education that leads them to think this way.

However, the author never lets the tree obscure the forest, and we see in various testimonies how unprepared they were for such a situation; they were ready for a nuclear attack by enemies, which meant that when the accident happened, very few knew what to do, and those who did were not heard to avoid causing panic among the population and to maintain the prestige of the Soviet Union outwardly. But it doesn’t only discuss reckless acts; it presents continuous testimonies of how bribes were accepted for something as simple as a bottle of vodka to enter the area—some to return and live there illegally, others to empty homes, others to harvest crops and sell products abroad, and those who entered to empty graves where all sorts of objects were buried, from household items to materials used for cleanup.

After reading the entire book, you get a sense of the "Soviet" mentality, the fatalistic outlook of its inhabitants, as well as the following chaos and utter neglect of the population's health; only appearances mattered, and they waited for Moscow to give the appropriate orders. One of the aspects that is striking is that only five years had passed since the USSR had disappeared, and many testimonies were completely disoriented regarding their nationality; first and foremost, they felt Soviet and found it difficult to adapt to the new situation.

Another strong point, which is the author's main intention, is to demonstrate how a part of her country, Belarus, has been affected by radiation, where people continue to live, harvest, and eat what the land provides, even with high radiation levels, leading to an increase in radiation-related illnesses, births with malformations, thyroid cancers, blood cancers, etc. … with the denial (in 1997) by Belarusian authorities that all of this was related to the accident.

Written in such a way that, although they are interviews, they read like monologues, without the author's questions and even if there are several protagonists, you know about them only because they are named at the beginning of the chapter, but their dialogues are not differentiated as they would be in an interview; you get to know them through the conversation and others presented like a chorus of many voices that, with brief explanations, share their experiences. And although they seem like monologues, each protagonist has their own distinct voice, turning it into a narrative filled with different nuances, even though some of them explain more or less the same thing, it ultimately comes across from different perspectives, creating a much more global idea.

A book that is moving, due to many of the testimonies, some of them very harsh, but it transports us to events, how life developed afterward, and above all how many people gave their lives at that moment or later without asking questions, and how their actions not only saved the closest areas but also prevented the possibility of a much greater accident affecting all of Europe and even the entire world.

A reading to uncover many things that were hidden (some of which have later been shown in the TV series, Chernobyl), written with courage only 10 years after the events and just 5 years after the disappearance of the Soviet Union. (Translated from Spanish)

Fantastic, impactful, incredibly tough... unique. It is one of the hardest and most beautiful books I have had the luck to read. If you are only looking for the morbid details of the effects of radiation, that's not what you will find. You will find the story of a town that had a life taken from them in a matter of minutes. (Translated from Spanish)

A very moving work that takes you to the moment of the reactor explosions in Chernobyl in '86. It tells us through the voices of the citizens about their situation before, at that moment, and after the accident. It tears you apart to see the injustices they faced. It reaches your soul and instills a sense of indignation towards the government, which cared little for the citizens, only wanting to maintain a good image globally. It shows you how no one was spared from misinformation; only a few at the highest levels knew the truth. Even they could not speak; they did not want anyone to be alerted. It also shows how in Belarus itself, the affected were discriminated against because they suffered from radiation and were considered contagious. It was not recommended to associate with them. Being born there was very bad. You came out with deformities. The novel narrates in raw detail everything they went through. I invite you to discover what else happened; there are many testimonies, and I cannot share them all. Each adds something to the story. It is very interesting to discover how they lived and continue to live. I was fascinated by the author's way of storytelling. (Translated from Spanish)

The story is very good but I didn't like the book... (Translated from Spanish)

Once I acquired the book, I thought it was a novel dealing with the theme of the nuclear plant in Chernobyl. I started reading it and realized it consisted of short stories presented as monologues told by people who were at the site of the nuclear disaster; or in nearby places; or in other locations but who had some proximity to the event. Oh surprise… I usually do not enjoy short stories and was expecting something else.

The surprise was even greater when I began reading the book. I immensely liked the way the author organized those monologues. Some of them are narrated masterfully. They make you feel all the pain and anxiety that the humans and animals affected by the tragedy must have felt. Because many of the stories address the theme of animals. This was outside the script; it makes you see the perspective from a point you could never have imagined.

It is a book that touches you from within, prompting thoughts about the difficult situation that humans must endure as a consequence of the irresponsible decisions of other humans. It makes you think that we are permanently exposed to many risks; that, sometimes, it is better to appear cowardly than to assume those risks which could bring dire consequences for our future, not just for ourselves but for those we love. It imposes the idea that life is a path with the same end for everyone, but it is better to travel it safely; that it must be sought, found, and the decision made to walk it; that sometimes there are paths that seem shorter, but are thwarted.

I also appreciated the opportunity to understand the mindset of people who have been and are indoctrinated in socialist ideas. It is certainly evident that the human being reaches a third degree, losing the importance of their value; it is not the goal. First is the state, then the leaders of the state, or vice versa, and finally, the common people. It does not matter what may happen to them as long as the regime remains in power. Ultimately, it is important to verify the degree of indoctrination in which the people found themselves, sadly. (Translated from Spanish)