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Stalking the Atomic City

Life Among the Decadent and the Depraved of Chornobyl

Markiyan Kamysh author Reilly Costigan-Humes translator Hanna Leliv translator

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Pushkin Press

Publishing:2nd Jan '25

£10.99

This title is due to be published on 2nd January, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

Stalking the Atomic City cover

'Remarkable' GUARDIAN
'Mesmerising' TELEGRAPH
'A voice that must be heard' PATTI SMITH

An exhilarating, immersive journey into the Exclusion Zone of Chornobyl with the disaffected adventurers who illegally stalk its ruins

Amidst the toxic desolation of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, a subculture has sprung up. They call themselves 'stalkers': wild adventurers who sneak past border controls to get lost in this apocalyptic environment of dense swampland and rusted ruins. Markiyan Kamysh is one, and here he takes us on a hallucinatory journey into an alien world.

With reckless energy, Kamysh tells of escapes from the police, hedonistic nights in bombed-out buildings and the spectral beauty that got him hooked on returning to the Zone. Brash, immersive and ecstatic, this is a singular document of a dystopian reality.

'An existential travel guide and an experiment in gonzo psychogeography, it stirs obvious comparisons with Hunter S Thompson... mesmerising' - The Telegraph

'A voice that must be heard' - Patti Smith (via Instagram)

'Kamyshs 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

'Kamysh has made us understand why he thinks the zone around Chornobyl is so special, why - because of its desolate serenity, and the freedom it grants from the strictures of normal life - it may even be worth dying for. No mean feat... Remarkable' - Guardian

'A brilliant, angry, witty, passionate book about the end of the future and what happens afterwards - Tarkovsky meets Hunter S. Thompson. Read it' - Kevin Power, author of White City

ISBN: 9781782278573

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

160 pages