Chernobyl Prayer: Voices from Chernobyl (Penguin Modern Classics)

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On 26 April 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, exploded and released 50m curies of radiation into the atmosphere, 70% of it falling on Belarus, but with plenty to spare for other countries not even vaguely adjacent. Chernobyl Children International and the Clean Futures Fund are two of the charities in this effort. The heroism of the firemen at Chernobyl, their pride and sense of duty, was in stark contrast to the cynical incompetence of the government.

Chernobyl Prayer was first published in Russian in 1997; a revised, updated edition was released in 2013. Some are experts like atomic scientists, doctors, politicians and engineers, but most are ordinary people who got caught up in the 1986 meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in northern Ukraine and the subsequent spread of radiation which, because of the wind direction, spread mostly across Belarus (23% of Belarus’s land is contaminated, the cancer rate has risen 74-fold, and only one person in 14 dies of old age). 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. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it's more like having a well-read friend than a subscription to a literary review.To become a subscriber to Slightly Foxed: The Real Reader’s Quarterly Magazine, please visit our subscriptions page. This masterly new translation by Anna Gunin and Arch Tait retains the nerve and pulse of the Russian, conveying the angst and confusion of the narrators -- Serguei Alex. You can unsubscribe from our list at any point by changing your preferences, or contacting us directly.

The ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster at the Mitino cemetery in Moscow.

But most of the book is made up of accounts from civilians who recount their thoughts and feelings as it seemed like the world was coming to and end around them.

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. Alexievich assembles the previously silenced or unsung heroes into a chorus that has the power to move, stun and inspire awe. Other volumes deal with different aspects of Russian life: from the war in Afghanistan ( Zinky Boys – the title refers to the zinc coffins dead soldiers were sent back to the motherland in) to life during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union ( Second-Hand Time, to be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions next month). What stands out from Chernobyl Prayer are the personal stories, the “missing history” of ordinary people and the wide variety of ways in which they see and experience and think about the same event.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. If you found the recent HBO series captivating, Svetlana Alexievich's Chernobyl Prayer provided some of the source material.