Overview

"Like a real-life trainspotting, a rare portrait of the dystopian reality that is Chornobyl today and the people who call the Exclusion Zone their home. Since the Chornobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986, the area remains a toxic, forbidden wasteland. The zone has become a place for meditation at the edge of geography where you can lose yourself. As with all dangerous places, this terra incognita attracts a wild assortment of adventurers who climb over the barbed wire illegally to witness the aftermath of catastrophe in the flesh. Breaking the law here is a pilgrimage- a metamodern sacred experience that coexists with thrash. Markiyan Kamysh, whose father worked as an on-site disaster liquidator of Chornobyl, works as a ""stalker,"" guiding people who dare to venture into the disaster area for thrills. Kamysh tells us about thieves who hide in the abandoned buildings, the policemen who chase them, and the romantic utopists who have built families here, even as deadly toxic waste lingers in the buildings, playgrounds, and streams. More than extraordinary guide to this alien world, Kamysh writes with a singular style that is both brash and bold, conferring an understated elegance to this dystopian reality. Complete with stunning photographs by the author, Stalking the Atomic City is a haunting account of what total autonomy could mean in our growingly fractured world."

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9781662601279

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Reviews

Not since Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano have I been so enthralled by such a poetic rush to madness. But that was fiction: Markiyan Kamysh's epic immersion in this dread symbol of humanity's self-inflicted undoing is shockingly real, recounted in a stunning, original voice as lyrical as it is unnerving. -Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us and Countdown Kamysh's account is a hybrid of an open world video game, a post-apocalyptic novel and an urban exploration. Everything seems fake, born of the author's mind. Instead, these places really do exist, just as these solitary travelers exist, facing all kinds of dangers to eat a sandwich and drink a beer while observing the spectral and fascinating world from the roof of an abandoned building in Pripyat. -Esquire (Italy) A fantastic account about the reality of disaster... With morbid fascination, Kamysh forcefully draws us though this territory of death where the memories of the Soviet Union are being gradually buried... A true backpacker's guide for disaster tourists. -L'Humanite (France) As much a radioactive walk as a fascinating poem on the 'destroyed' youth who live behind the barbed wire of this irradiated space. -20 Minutes (France) A stunning book... a personal and hallucinatory account of this unique place. In the zone, no one can escape their ghosts. -Le Nouvel Observateur (France) A flamboyant story... A wild trip to the heart of a radioactive jungle. -Les Inrockuptibles (France)

A gonzo account of life as a 'stalker'-a shadowy thrill-seeker haunting the Chornobyl exclusion zone after dark, sneaking past the guards and scaling radio masts. Kamysh's throbbing, fragmentary prose offers heart-stopping insight into what drives those who choose to trespass in dangerous places: reckless abandon in abandoned places. -Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment Evocative... a stark metaphor for post-Soviet depravity.... Captures the zone's strange mix of beauty and bleakness with precision. A captivating study of 'the most exotic place on earth'. -Publishers Weekly Not since Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano have I been so enthralled by such a poetic rush to madness. But that was fiction: Markiyan Kamysh's epic immersion in this dread symbol of humanity's self-inflicted undoing is shockingly real, recounted in a stunning, original voice as lyrical as it is unnerving. -Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us and Countdown Kamysh paints a picture-and includes his own photographs-of a stark, surreal landscape.... Translators Leliv and Costigan-Humes capture Kamysh's angry, sometimes hauntingly rueful prose. A visceral, graphic report from dystopia. -Kirkus Reviews Although the sad and dark atmosphere of the Zone might suggest a merciless chronicle of the ghosts that the Chornobyl disaster released into history, Kamysh is moving, escalating with maturity the register of his language from energetic to ardent, melancholy theology. -Corriere della Sera A fantastic account about the reality of disaster... With morbid fascination, Kamysh forcefully draws us through this territory of death where the memories of the Soviet Union are being gradually buried... A true backpacker's guide for disaster tourists. -L'Humanite (France) As much a radioactive walk as a fascinating poem on the 'destroyed' youth who live behind the barbed wire of this irradiated space. -20 Minutes (France) A stunning book... a personal and hallucinatory account of this unique place. In the zone, no one can escape their ghosts. -Le Nouvel Observateur (France) A flamboyant story... A wild trip to the heart of a radioactive jungle. -Les Inrockuptibles (France)

The exhilaration of the intrepid trespasser sings throughout this crass, funky ode to an addiction to living in the realm of desolation. -Peggy Kurkowski, Shelf Awareness In the shadow of catastrophe, Markiyan Kamysh writes with all of youth's wayward lyricism, like a nuclear Kerouac. -Rob Doyle, author of Threshold A gonzo account of life as a 'stalker'-a shadowy thrill-seeker haunting the Chornobyl exclusion zone after dark, sneaking past the guards and scaling radio masts. Kamysh's throbbing, fragmentary prose offers heart-stopping insight into what drives those who choose to trespass in dangerous places: reckless abandon in abandoned places. -Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment Evocative... a stark metaphor for post-Soviet depravity.... Captures the zone's strange mix of beauty and bleakness with precision. A captivating study of 'the most exotic place on earth'. -Publishers Weekly Not since Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano have I been so enthralled by such a poetic rush to madness. But that was fiction: Markiyan Kamysh's epic immersion in this dread symbol of humanity's self-inflicted undoing is shockingly real, recounted in a stunning, original voice as lyrical as it is unnerving. -Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us and Countdown Kamysh paints a picture-and includes his own photographs-of a stark, surreal landscape.... Translators Leliv and Costigan-Humes capture Kamysh's angry, sometimes hauntingly rueful prose. A visceral, graphic report from dystopia. -Kirkus Reviews Although the sad and dark atmosphere of the Zone might suggest a merciless chronicle of the ghosts that the Chornobyl disaster released into history, Kamysh is moving, escalating with maturity the register of his language from energetic to ardent, melancholy theology. -Corriere della Sera A fantastic account about the reality of disaster... With morbid fascination, Kamysh forcefully draws us through this territory of death where the memories of the Soviet Union are being gradually buried... A true backpacker's guide for disaster tourists. -L'Humanite (France) As much a radioactive walk as a fascinating poem on the 'destroyed' youth who live behind the barbed wire of this irradiated space. -20 Minutes (France) A stunning book... a personal and hallucinatory account of this unique place. In the zone, no one can escape their ghosts. -Le Nouvel Observateur (France) A flamboyant story... A wild trip to the heart of a radioactive jungle. -Les Inrockuptibles (France)

Author Information

Markiyan Kamysh is a Ukrainian writer who represents the Chornobyl underground in literature. Since 2010, he has illegally explored the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. He is the son of a Chornobyl liquidator, nuclear physicist and design engineer of the Institute for Nuclear Research in Kyiv who died in 2003. Stalking the Atomic City is his first book, which was translated in multiple languages and published to great acclaim. He lives in Kyiv, Ukraine. See more photos on his Instagram @markiyankamysh.

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