Half Life: a Journey to Chernobyl

Mario Petrucci

Mario is an ecologist, physicist and war poet. He is also the only poet to have been in residence at the Imperial War Museum. Heavy Water is based on eye-witness accounts, as collected in Svetlana Alexievich’s book Voices from Chernobyl. It won the 2002 Daily Telegraph/Arvon award, and segments of the poem, read live at London’s Barbican, generated one of the most powerful moments of BBC Radio 3's inaugural 'Listen Up!' festival. A Natural Sciences graduate, Mario was recently Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Oxford Brookes University, and works as an educator and a radio/TV broadcaster. Poems from Heavy Water are featured in Poetry Review, The London Magazine, Acumen, Agenda, on BBC Radio and at The Royal Festival Hall.

Press Comments for Heavy Water:
“Heartfelt, ambitious and alive” Jackie Kay, The Daily Telegraph
“Weighty and painful. Powerful material…” Poetry Review
“Radiates compassion” The Observer

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