The 1,000-square-mile Chornobyl Exclusion Zone is, for many, a symbol of total disaster: a reminder of shattered ideals and lost lives, now a toxic, dangerous no-man's-land. For Markiyan Kamysh, it became a site of pilgrimage. He and dozens like him call themselves 'stalkers': wild adventurers who sneak past border patrols to spend days getting lost in this apocalyptic environment of dense swampland and desolate villages. Kamysh, the son of a Chornobyl disaster liquidator, takes us with him into this alien world. In electric prose that captures the spectral beauty of the Zone and the reckless spirit of the stalkers, Kamysh tells of hallucinatory journeys alone amid the rusted ruins, of frantic brushes with police and moments of ecstatic oblivion in the wasteland. Written with gonzo energy and brash lyricism, Stalking the Atomic City is a vital, singular document of this dystopian reality.

"Stark, surreal... A visceral, graphic report from dystopia" - Kirkus Reviews

"A fantastic account of the reality of disaster... A true backpacker's guide for disaster tourists" - L'Humanité

"A hypnotic work of impressions, facts and photographs, documenting Kamysh's decade underground. Its timing could not be more pertinent" - Irish Times

"An intimate, lived-in account of a ruined landscape and the people who find themselves drawn to it... a haunting, immersive read" - Words Without Borders

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

"Grimly fascinating insights... a memorable read" - Independent

"An extraordinary window on Chernobyl" - New Scientist

"Blunt, bare, ecstatic... [Stalking the Atomic City] has a rare quality of revelation about it and hums with a kind of exhaustedly beautiful intensity." - Quietus

"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