Museum hosts book launch for Mary Mycio's "Wormwood Forest" (02/12/06)

Museum hosts book launch for Mary Mycio's "Wormwood Forest"

by Khristina Lew
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

NEW YORK - Over 100 people attended the standing-room-only New York launch of Ukrainian American author Mary Mycio's new book, "Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl" at The Ukrainian Museum in the East Village on January 24.

New York was the final stop in Ms. Mycio's U.S. book tour. Earlier, on January 19, 150 people attended a launch in Washington, and on January 22, 60 people met Ms. Mycio in Chicago.

"Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl" is a lyrical account of the former Los Angeles Times correspondent's journeys through the radioactive wilderness thriving in the Chornobyl zone, which straddles the border between Ukraine and Belarus. The book has been favorably reviewed by Discover Magazine, Science, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, National Catholic Reporter and the Moscow Times.

In its review, Discover wrote: "Mycio's finely detailed first-person investigation of the ecology of the world's most famous disaster area has a haunting grandeur that should appeal to naturalists and fans of the apocalypse alike."

Ms. Mycio is a longtime New Yorker who was among the first to move to Ukraine with the burgeoning independence movement in 1989. She worked for the Popular Movement of Ukraine, or Rukh, and later began writing for newspapers and magazines around the world, including the Los Angeles Times. She has visited the Chornobyl zone over 20 times.

Her B.A. in biology, law degree from New York University and hands-on experience in Ukraine put her in a unique position to detail the activities within the "Zone of Alienation" surrounding the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. Ms. Mycio currently lives in Kyiv, where she is also director of the IREX ProMedia Legal Defense and Education Program for Ukrainian journalists.

The January 24 launch at The Ukrainian Museum, in one of the new building's expansive exhibition halls, was filled to capacity. Ms. Mycio presented a slide show of her photos from the Chornobyl zone, including images of lush forests, abandoned villages choked by underbrush, herds of Przewalski horses, and a solitary moose wandering through a peat bog.

Many of the photos were taken in Belarus, and Ms. Mycio described the difficulties she had in gaining entry into that country, including crossing the Ukraine-Belarus border several times in order to get the necessary stamps in her passport.

Ms. Mycio also explained that while the Chornobyl zone was abandoned, for the most part, by humans in 1986, many of the animals currently living there are growing in number, like the nearly extinct Przewalski horses. "Wormwood Forest" is primarily an exploration of nature in the zone and details the flourishing of plant and animal life there.

Ms. Mycio took many questions from the audience, and later signed copies of her book during a reception.

She said she was "pleasantly surprised" by the number of people who attended the three launches, and by the types of questions asked. All the questions, she said, "were knowledgeable and demonstrated a genuine concern for the subject. Some of the questions were provocative, but not in a negative way. I expected someone to ask me why I used 'Chernobyl' with an 'e' in the title, rather than 'Chornobyl' with an 'o.' No one did."

Ms. Mycio explains in the first chapter of her book that the 1986 accident and the nuclear station have commonly been referred to by the Russian spelling, "Chernobyl." She refers to the town itself, and the herb, as "Chornobyl."

Event coordinator Tamara Gallo Olexy, speaking on behalf of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, commented: "We are proud to host Mary Mycio and the launch of her book, 'Wormwood Forest.' The good will of the sponsoring organizations and the number of Ukrainian Americans who attended the event show that the community is proud of her success as well."

The launch was sponsored also by The Ukrainian Museum, the Brooklyn Ukrainian Group and the Women's Association for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine.

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