John Freeman

On April 26, 1986, an explosion in Chernobyl caused the worst nuclear accident in history. Although only thirty-one people died, thanks to the Soviet Union's policy of secrecy we will never know the true cost. Unknown thousands were born with birth defects, and many more from the tiny country of Belarus remain haunted by memories of that day. Svetlana Alexievich's "Voices from Chernobyl" is the first book to chronicle their stories.

As Haruki Murakami did in "Underground," his oral history of 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 tromped on the burning graphite with his feet. He died fourteen days later, choking on his internal organs.

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."

One of the fascinating things about "Voices from Chernobyl" is the awful beauty found 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. She burned up with typhus during the war. 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."

Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

By Svetlana Alexievich; Translation and Preface by Keith Gessen

Dalkey Archive, $22.95; 240 pages

(2005-05-10)

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