Chernobyl Prayer

In April 1986, a series of explosions shook the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Flames lit up the sky and radiation escaped to contaminate the land and poison the people for years to come. While the official Soviet narrative downplayed the consequences, Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, spent years collecting testimonies from survivors: clean-up workers, firefighters, widows, children growing up in the disaster's long shadow, assembling their voices into a haunting oral history full of fear and anger, but also extraordinary tenderness, courage and wisdom. A chronicle of the past and a warning for our nuclear future, Chernobyl Prayer is a deeply humane masterpiece that bears witness to the catastrophe's indelible impact, raising profound questions about humanity and nature, community, power and sacrifice.