# Is "Voices from Chernobyl" by Svetlana Alexievich a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich (Ostozhye, Moscow, 1997) is identified by: The Russian text first appeared in the journal Druzhba Narodov in 1997 and was issued as a book the same year: Chernobylskaya molitva (Чернобыльская молитва), Ostozhye, Moscow, 1997, 224 pages, ISBN 5-86095-088-8 — the Ostozhye imprint and that ISBN carry the identification. Russian is the true first (Ostozhye, Moscow, 1997).

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The Russian text first appeared in the journal Druzhba Narodov in 1997 and was issued as a book the same year: Chernobylskaya molitva (Чернобыльская молитва), Ostozhye, Moscow, 1997, 224 pages, ISBN 5-86095-088-8 — the Ostozhye imprint and that ISBN carry the identification
- The first edition in English is Voices from Chernobyl: Chronicle of the Future, Aurum Press, London, 1999, translated by Antonina W. Bouis, hardcover of 288 pages in dust jacket, ISBN 1-85410-649-X. No number line or printing statement is documented for the Aurum issue in the sources consulted, so identification rests on the Aurum imprint, the 1999 first-publication line on the copyright page with no later-printing statement, and the original ISBN; the jacket should be present and unclipped with the price at the flap
- Publisher imprint reads Ostozhye, Moscow
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Svetlana Alexievich |
| Publisher | Ostozhye, Moscow |
| Year | 1997 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The Russian text first appeared in the journal Druzhba Narodov in 1997 and was issued as a book the same year: Chernobylskaya molitva… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The Russian text first appeared in the journal Druzhba Narodov in 1997 and was issued as a book the same year: Chernobylskaya molitva (Чернобыльская молитва), Ostozhye, Moscow, 1997, 224 pages, ISBN 5-86095-088-8 — the Ostozhye imprint and that ISBN carry the identification. The first edition in English is Voices from Chernobyl: Chronicle of the Future, Aurum Press, London, 1999, translated by Antonina W. Bouis, hardcover of 288 pages in dust jacket, ISBN 1-85410-649-X. No number line or printing statement is documented for the Aurum issue in the sources consulted, so identification rests on the Aurum imprint, the 1999 first-publication line on the copyright page with no later-printing statement, and the original ISBN; the jacket should be present and unclipped with the price at the flap.

## Is this the true first?
Russian is the true first (Ostozhye, Moscow, 1997). The census claim that Dalkey Archive 2005 is the first English is WRONG: Aurum Press, London, 1999 (Bouis) precedes it by six years, so the UK, not the US, holds the first in English. The Dalkey Archive Press edition of 2005 — Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, a new translation by Keith Gessen, ISBN 1-56478-401-0, hardcover in jacket — is a first thus, not a first in English; it is nonetheless the widely collected American book (National Book Critics Circle Award for general non-fiction, 2005) and the copy most associated with the 2015 Nobel. Both the Aurum 1999 and the Dalkey 2005 are collected, and dealers frequently mis-describe the Dalkey as 'First English Edition, First Printing'.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented. Reprint and first-thus tells: Picador, New York, 2006 paperback (ISBN 0-312-42584-8) reprints the Gessen text; Penguin Modern Classics, London, 2016 is a third English translation (Anna Gunin and Arch Tait) retitled Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future; a Deep Vellum reissue of the Dalkey text also circulates. Alexievich revised the Russian text in 2013, so post-2013 Russian printings are a different text from the 1997 Ostozhye first. A Dalkey uncorrected proof in wrappers is recorded and is not the first edition.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Voices from Chernobyl* by Svetlana Alexievich a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/voices-from-chernobyl
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.