Storholmen
2015 Longlist

Voices from Chernobyl

Translated from the Norwegian by Marietta Taralrud Maddrell
artwork-image

ABOUT
THE BOOK

Chernobyl, 26 April 1986. Things were ruined overnight in that quiet town of Ukraine. An experiment to produce electricity from the residual energy in the steam generator of Reactor Four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station went horribly wrong, bringing on an explosion that blew away the reactor’s roof and set afire the graphite in its core. The blaze lasted several days, casting huge quantities of radioactivity a thousand metres up into the atmosphere. And it was a long time before the local people were evacuated.

This is the story of what came after. What happened to the people of Chernobyl? How did innocuous atoms – which make all things, even us – connive to unleash destruction so vicious that there was little left to be salvaged? Did the world learn any lessons from the tragedy? Told in the voices of many victims, this elegiac novel recounts how their bodies, lives and loves, realities and memories were distorted forever, and how the very air around them was irrevocably changed.

 

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Ingrid
Storholmen

INGRID STORHOLMEN is a Norwegian poet and novelist. Her poetry collections have been published to great acclaim since 2001 and she has read at various international literature festivals. Her first novel Voices from Chernobyl (2009) won the prestigious Sult Prize and its English translation was nominated for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, among others. The novel was also translated into Hindi, French and Estonian, among others, and was dramatized for the theatre in 2015.

INGRID STORHOLMEN is a Norwegian poet and novelist. Her poetry collections have been published to great acclaim since 2001 and she has read at various international literature festivals. Her first novel Voices from Chernobyl (2009) won the prestigious Sult Prize and its English translation was nominated for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, among others. The novel was also translated into Hindi, French and Estonian, among others, and was dramatized for the theatre in 2015.

ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Marietta
Taralrud Maddrell

Marietta Taralrud Maddrell was born in England to a Norwegian father and Swedish mother. She took up the translation of Voices from Chernobyl in support of the anti-nuclear movement in India and for the exceptional nature of the narrative.
Marietta Taralrud Maddrell was born in England to a Norwegian father and Swedish mother. She took up the translation of Voices from Chernobyl in support of the anti-nuclear movement in India and for the exceptional nature of the narrative.

NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

Stories and voices from one of the worst accidents in modern history written in fantastic poetic language.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
01/02/2013
Country
Norway
Original Language
Norwegian
Publisher
HarperCollins
Translator
Marietta Taralrud Maddrell
Translation
Translated from the Norwegian by Marietta Taralrud Maddrell

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