"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.\nI 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.

Where are you going, Iryna?

Literature & Fiction

Pascual, Rosa Maria

Genre Fiction

Muñoz Moya Editores

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Books by Pascual, Rosa Maria

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Pascual, Rosa Maria. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Where are you going, Iryna?