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Someone once said that what makes a literary
work is what we might call excellent use of
language . Well, the novel Where are you going,
Iryna? is undoubtedly a perfect example of this,
packed with rare quality and sensitivity. Combining
great narrative style and extreme delicacy,
the author shows us the grim reality for the
people of Ukraine of the tragedy that happened
at Chernobyl on 26 April 1986 during and after
the accident at the nuclear power station.
The story focuses on the character of Iryna,
the people around her, and the experiences she
and her brother Vasyl have in Catalonia with a
host family when they are children. Flashing
backwards and forwards in time without ever
losing clarity, the novel places us at different
periods in Iryna’s exciting life as, despite the
serious difficulties she often faces, she manages
to maintain her enthusiasm and desire to get on.
Iryna’s story is inspiring but also reminds us of
just how far human beings can go wrong when we
fail to calibrate certain technological applications
correctly. The Chernobyl disaster should certainly
not be forgotten considering that the price we
normally pay when we lose our collective
memory is repeating the same mistakes.
All this makes Rosa Maria Pascual’s novel an
excellent, must-read book for remembering what
it means to contaminate land for centuries
- something that should never, ever happen again.
I was a young journalist in the UK when the nuclear accident
at Chernobyl happened. At first it seemed like another of the
many terrible things that happen in far-off countries and
make only brief headlines in our media before quickly disappearing
from the front pages. Soon, though, a radioactive
cloud began spreading across Europe and, perhaps for the
first time, we were all forced to realise what a small, fragile
world we live in.
Three decades on, Rosa Maria Pascual’s splendid novel
tells the stories that weren’t heard at the time: what happened
- and is still happening - to the people living around
the nuclear power station in what was then the Soviet Union
and is now Ukraine. From the first page it is a compelling
read: a multi-stranded road movie of a book interweaving
first-hand accounts of the explosion itself and its horrific
consequences; the journey of a woman from far-away Catalonia
to discover the truth of the disaster as she helps children
affected by its consequences; and the odyssey of one
of those Chernobyl children who goes on the run with her
young daughter to escape an unpleasant fate in her own
country.
There’s a lot more too. This is a book about nationalism
and politics, about human nature, about little-known cultures
and, most of all, about women and their defiant love for
parents, children, husbands and lovers, set against a background
of disaster and tragedy. Because even in the darkest
situations, love offers a glimmer of hope for us all.
