Ten years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, Nobel Prize-winning author Svetlana Alexievich returned to the place where she grew up to give voice to the people who lived through the events a stone’s throw from the nuclear reactor.

Her book, Voices from Chernobyl, consists of a series of monologues and is a record of the oral history of the people of Belarus, those who were scarred by the event – knowingly or unknowingly. Men, women, soldiers, elderly, children, Alexievich’s narrators are those who worked in the months after the accident in the area, those who were forced to leave their homes, their villages, their land, and those who returned to live again in the Forbidden Zone.

Now, Cypriot director Maria Kyriakou adapts Alexievich’s book for the stage and puts together a performance about love and deep faith. Faith in big ideas, faith in one’s country but also love for the land and nature, love for a specific way of life and what it means to abandon it. Voices from Chernobyl is a performance about human existence, about the sense of belonging and about what it means to search for meaning in a world that gives you none.

A series of performances will take place. They will premiere at Rialto Theatre on March 25 and 26, before being presented at Theatro Dentro on April 11-16, 22-23 and 28-30. Although the performance is in Greek, several performances will include surtitles in English and Russian.

“What lingers most in my memory of Chernobyl is life afterwards,” Alexievich once said, “the possessions without owners, the landscapes without people. The roads going nowhere, the cables leading nowhere. You find yourself wondering just what this is: the past or the future. It sometimes felt to me as if I was recording the future.”

Voices from Chernobyl

Adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning author Svetlana Alexievich’s book on the Chernobyl accident. March 25-26. Rialto Theatre, Limassol. April 11-16, 22-23 and 28-30. Theatro Dentro, Nicosia. 8.30pm. €20. In Greek. With surtitles in English and Russian. www.rialto.com.cy, www.more.com. Tel: 97-617770