Chernobyl Roulette - Serhii Plokhy - 2024
A War Story

By: Serhii Plokhy
Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 09-03-24
Categories: History, Europe
Language: English
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Format: mp3 64/48 stereo

Publisher's Summary:

Brought to you by Penguin.

What if Chernobyl was just the beginning?
The acclaimed winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize returns to Chernobyl to tell the gripping story of thirty-five days of war

On 24 February 2022, the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, armoured vehicles approached the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine. It was the most direct way for them to reach the capital - and an extraordinarily reckless plan after the disaster that had taken place there three decades earlier. Russian occupation of the plant had begun. It would last thirty-five days.

Closely reported and narrated from multiple perspectives, this is the story of the Ukrainians who were held hostage and worked shifts for weeks instead of days to spare the world a new nuclear accident. We meet Valentyn Heiko, the foreman who had also been there for the clean-up of the Chernobyl accident in 1986 and turned sixty during the occupation; plant workers who found a way to celebrate International Women’s Day despite all odds; Russian officers who had no knowledge of nuclear reactors; and four stalkers who were caught in the middle and stood in for the overworked cook.

Gripping and unforgettable, Chernobyl Roulette sounds the alarm about the dangers of nuclear sites in an unprecedented time, when plant workers are left to fight on their own while the world holds its breath. In a book that reads like a thriller, Serhii Plokhy tells a remarkable story about human nature, uncertainty and courage.

'A necessary book – and I can think of no writer better qualified to write it' Cal Flyn

©2024 Serhii Plokhy (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

Chernobyl Roulette is a fast-paced, illuminating narrative of the incredible heroism and courage shown by the personnel of Ukrainian nuclear facilities that were attacked by Russian forces, and of the stupefying recklessness with which the Russian military pushed the world to the brink of a nuclear disaster. A must-read (Yaroslav Trofimov, author of Our Enemies Will Vanish)

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