Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature On April 26, 1986, the most noticeably awful atomic reactor accident in history happened in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three-quarters of Europe. Voices from Chernobyl is the first book to show individual accounts of the catastrophe. Writer Svetlana Alexievich met hundreds of individuals influenced by the meltdown—from innocent citizens to firefighters to those called in to clean up the disaster—and their stories uncover the fear, outrage, and vulnerability with which they still live. Composed of interviews in monolog form, Voices from Chernobyl could be an urgently vital work of gigantic drive, exceptional in its enthusiastic control and genuineness.