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Rebecca :
Dear Irene,
I found your The Sky Unwashed at the library & was enthralled by your writing & the story you had to tell. How did you come to write this hypnotic & vivid story about how the fallout from the Chernobyl Catastrophe of April 1986 affected the villagers in the surrounding farmlands?
Irene :
First of all, thank you for the kind words about The Sky Unwashed. Chornobyl (Ukrainian transliteration) interests me for two reasons: I am of Ukrainian descent, so there is an inherent connection to that part of the world, and as a concerned individual, I'm appalled at the wanton carelessness and subsequent cover-ups that caused one of the most horrific environmental catastrophes ever. The fallout at Chornobyl is the equivalent of about eight Hiroshimas, and the consequences of that event are still prevalent in the Ukrainian and Byelorussian populations, especially in children who suffer leukemia because their parents were exposed to the radiation.
My novel is based on a true story. In 1991, I read an article in a Ukrainian-American newspaper about a small group of elderly folks in Ukraine who returned to their irradiated, contaminated village in what is now called the “exclusion zone” - the immediate area of villages and towns surrounding Chornobyl. They returned to their deserted ghost villages soon after they were evacuated because they had nowhere else to go and were abandoned by the government. They wanted to return to their homes to die. I found this a fascinating story because you rarely heard about what happened to the survivors after the meltdown. At the time I read the article, I was at an artists' colony in Taos, New Mexico and it seemed appropriate to write about this story while there. At first it was a short story - I am primarily a short story writer, but it grew into a novel.
Later that year, the Soviet Union disbanded, and then a bit later, I was invited to teach English as a second language to Ukrainian students in Kyiv (Kiev), which is about 60 miles from Chornobyl. My students all had their own stories about Chornobyl and what they went through during that awful time. A few of them even took me into the zone, but a militia man refused to let us travel into Chornobyl. Even so, my having lived in Ukraine gave me the “atmospherics,” you know, the sights, sounds and scents of that place and how the people are in that part of the world which enabled me to write about it. And I also incorporated my own Ukrainian background as well.
Rebecca :
Did you originally write in Ukrainian & translate The Sky Unwashed yourself? How long did it take you?
Irene :
I'm an American. I was born and lived most of my life in Chicago. My mother is from Ukraine, and so are my father's family. In fact, most of my family are still in Ukraine. We however, lived in the Ukrainian neighborhood on Chicago's West Side, and I went to Ukrainian school and attended Ukrainian churches. Although Ukrainian was my first language, I'm more fluent in English and I write only in English. The only thing I translated in The Sky Unwashed was the poem by Ukraine's national poet, Shevchenko from which the title is taken.
Writing the book took about three to four years - I don't remember. I would send it out periodically, and it would be rejected, and then I would revise it, put it away to work on other things which went through the same process...you know, the usual writer's cycle of sending manuscripts out into the world and waiting for someone to embrace it. It's kind of like searching for a mate.
Rebecca :
The word Chernobyl has become part of the global language meaning a nuclear plant disaster, what did it originally mean?
Irene :
Both “chernobyl” in Russian and “chornobyl” in Ukrainian mean wormwood - a bitter herb which is also mention in Revelations and is quoted in my novel.
The area in Ukraine where Chornobyl is situated was once quite a desirable and beautiful place. The czars and nobility used to vacation there because of the abundant and lush forests, and the Prypiat River was a great source for trout. The area was also know for its wild white mushrooms which I understand the women still harvest and sell in the bazaars.
Rebecca :
The Sky Unwashed is such a rich & womanly read, about surviving & thriving in a devastated land, what did you want us to hear about Marusia & her enduring will?
Irene :
Marusia is typical of the strong-spirited women I grew up with and knew in my Chicago neighborhood and in Ukraine. I also wanted to demonstrate how strong - physically and spiritually - older women are. They're amazingly complex, indomitable and resilient beings but too often are easily dismissed or derided in most cultures, our own included.
Rebecca :
Marusia's daughter-in-law Zosia also learns how to survive - could there be a sequel about her & her children?
Irene :
I don't know; at least not at this time. Zosia is a fascinating character too - very strong and formidable in her own right, and deserves to have her own story more fully told. Maybe someday.
Rebecca :
Who are your favorite authors & why?
Irene :
Wow - what writer doesn't have an infinite slew of favorites? I read constantly and am always learning from the writers I read. At the moment, my teachers are Nabokov, Annie Proulx, Michael Cunningham and the English short story writer H. E. Bates. I've also been inspired by Edwidge Danticat, Maria Thomas, Alice Munro, Oscar Hijuelos, Isaac Singer, Amy Tan and Bharati Murkherjee. I still read the classics, so I'll pick up a Chekhov, Dickens, Austen, or Dostoyevsky. Lately, I've been reading a lot of Gogol who, by the way, was also Ukrainian.
I'm also reading a lot about writers writing. This is important for me - to keep an interior dialogue running about the writing process with writers like Flannery O'Connor and Annie Dillard who articulate what I keep attempting to do. Right now, I'm reading a wonderful collection of essays by N. Scott Momaday, The Man Made of Words. Reading such helpful books keeps me from feeling defeated especially on days when I think that my work is futile. Now and then, I also reread The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. She's wonderful and her book changed my life. From her, I learned to accept myself as a writer and an artist and to value the creative spirit. I highly recommend it for anyone who needs that reinforcement.
Rebecca :
What would you have had the “authorities” do differently should there be another such catastrophe?
Irene :
Hopefully, there won't be another Chornobyl-type foul-up, but if it happens again, I hope that the people who will be victimized are placed well above public relations concerns or political ideologies; that there will not be another cover-up or lack of medical and economic aid to anyone who suffers such horrors.
Rebecca :
Are you telling some new stories now?
Irene :
I'm in the midst of a few concentrated projects, one of which is a collection of several interlinking short stories based on my Ukrainian neighborhood in Chicago.
Rebecca :
Irene, is there anything else you would like to say?
Irene :
The Sky Unwashed is a very quiet book about a very horrific catastrophe. I deliberately wrote it that way so that the simple prose impacts and permeates the psyche in the way that radiation inflicted the environment and the lives of the victims: invisibly, but with tremendous long-lasting effects.
Thanks to all who read and supported The Sky Unwashed. I hope that anyone who reads it comes away with the feeling that despite the cultural exoticisms, we're still part of one planet, and the endurance of the human spirit persists in all.
Rebecca :
Thank you Irene for a good read about such an important subject. I'm sure that we'll be seeing much more of you.
Irene Zabytko is featured in our Authors & Books
(Published January 14, 2001)
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