Published by
Berlin Verlag, Germany
Vremya, Russia
Saeib Books, South Korea
Lattès, France
Citic, China
Czarne, Poland
Penguin Random House, Spain
Ersatz, Sweden
Iwanami Shoten, Japan
Solum Forlag, Norway
20|20 Editora, Portugal
Owl Publishing House, Taiwan
Edizioni e/o, Italia
Corint, Romania
Artanuji Publishers, Georgia
Európa Publishers, Hungary
Masr El Arabia, Egypt
Edicije Bozicevic, Croatia
Tammi Publishers, Finland
Európa Publishers, Hungary
Alma littera, Lithuania
Megha Books, India (Malayalam)
Ethir Veliyedu, India (Tamil)
Komora, Ukraine
Región Projekt, Slovakia
Rayo Verde Editorial, Spain (Catalan)
Fan Noli, Albania
Companhia das Letras, Brazil
Lindhardt og Ringhof, Denmark
Laguna, Serbia
De Bezige Bij, The Netherlands
Buzuku, Kosovo
Epsilon Yayincilik Ltd., Turkey
Patakis Publishers, Greece
Khuc Thi Hoa Phuong, Vietnam
Pistorius & Olsanska, Czech Republic
Olebella Publishers, India (Kannada)
Kostova Antolog, Macedonia
Bolor Sudar, Mongolia
Dalkey Archive Press (paperback edition: Picador), USA
Paradox, Bulgaria
Vinnochokh Publications, Bangladesh
Madhushree Publication, India (Marathi)
The film adaptation "Voices from Chernobyl" ("La supplication"), 2015, by Pol Cruchten has been honoured as “Best Documentary” at the Minneapolis St. Paul Film Festival and has been awarded the “Grand Prix” at the Festival International du Film d’Environnement, Paris , and the Grand Prize 'Cora Coralina' at the 18th International Environmental Film and Video Festival (FICA) in Brazil.
The solos and chorus sung by those directly affected by Chernobyl give a chilling immediacy to the full scope of the Chernobyl disaster. There is the voice of the fire fighter’s wife who was kept from going to her husband because he was a dangerous “radioactive” object. There is the uncomprehending voice of an old woman farmer unable to see why she has to leave her village: “Why go away? It’s good to be here. Everything grows, everything flourishes.” There is a chorus of voices representing the “clean-up crew” soldiers for whom it has taken years to understand why girls do not want to make love to them. The beginning and the end of the book are each marked by the monologue of a “lonely human voice.” They are the voices of two women, who tended their husbands to the very end of a gruesome death from radiation sickness, watching their bodies literally falling apart. Alexievich emphasizes—and rightly so—that this is not a book about Chernobyl, but about the after effects of Chernobyl, about people living in a new reality that already exists, but which has not yet been comprehended. Those who experienced Chernobyl are the survivors of an atomic World War III. In this hostile world, “everything seems to be entirely normal, evil hides behind a new mask, one cannot see it, hear it, touch it, or smell it. Anything can kill you – water, the soil, an apple, rain. Our dictionary is out of date. There are as yet no words, no feelings to describe it.” |