On April 26, 1986, an explosion in Chernobyl caused the worst nuclear accident in history. Only 31 people were reported to have died, but because of the Soviet Union’s policy of secrecy, we may never know the true cost. Unknown thousands were born with birth defects, and many more from the country of Belarus are haunted by memories of that day.
Svetlana Alexievich’s “Voices from Chernobyl,” winner of the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction, is the first book to chronicle their stories.
As Haruki Murakami did in “Underground,” his book about the gas attack on Tokyo’s subway, Alexievich puts full faith in the power of people’s testimony, constructing a narrative from them alone. “I don’t know what I should talk about,” says the first voice, belonging to Lyudmilla Ignatenko. Her husband was a first responder, as they are called today. He rushed to the scene with other firefighters and stomped on the burning graphite. He died painfully 14 days later.
The title of this book suggests a mosaic of gruesome description. It’s not. With the exception of those who received the heaviest exposure, radiation is an invisible killer. “People have covered up,” remembers one woman, “they’re hiding. Livestock is moaning, the kids are crying. It’s war! And the sun is out.”
Authorities hit the airwaves telling people to evacuate, and the rush to leave was surreal. A soldier recalls seeing an old man lying in the road crying. “I’ll just get up, and walk to the cemetery,” the man said, resigned to his fate. “I’ll do it myself.”
One of the fascinating things about “Voices from Chernobyl” is the awful beauty in testimonies of pain and suffering. It’s worth recalling that these are not writers or singers, but ordinary people who have forged language into a crutch, a sword, a shield, shelter. There is nothing extraneous in their stories, as in this devastating passage:
“I go to the cemetery. My mom’s there. My little daughter … Right after we took her to the cemetery, buried her, the sun came out of the clouds. And shone and shone. Like: You should go and dig her up. My husband is there. Fedya. I sit with them all. I sigh a little. You can talk to the dead just like you can talk to the living. Makes no difference to me. I can hear the one and the other. When you’re alone … And when you’re sad. When you’re very sad.”
With comments like these, one would be a fool to ask why Alexievich chose to present this book as an oral history, rather than a conventional narrative. These voices are essential, powerful and brave. One can only hope the half-life of their suffering is not so long.
John Freeman is president of the National Book Critics Circle.
Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
By Svetlana Alexievich
Translation and Preface by Keith Gessen
Dalkey Archive, 240 pages, $22.95
