Roadside Picnic

Roadside Picnic
Author	Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Original title	Пикник на обочине
Translator	Antonina W. Bouis
Cover artist	Richard M. Powers
Language	Russian
Genre	Science fiction
Publisher	Macmillan
Publication date	1972
Publication place	Soviet Union
Published in English	1977
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
ISBN	0-02-615170-7
OCLC	2910972

Roadside Picnic (Russian: Пикник на обочине, romanized: Piknik na obochine, IPA: [pʲɪkˈnʲik nɐ ɐˈbot͡ɕɪnʲe]) is a philosophical science fiction novel by Soviet-Russian authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, written in 1971 and published in 1972. It is the brothers' most popular and most widely translated novel outside the former Soviet Union. As of 2003, Boris Strugatsky counted 55 publications of Roadside Picnic in 22 countries.^[1]

The story is published in English in a translation by Antonina W. Bouis. A preface to the first American edition^[2] was written by Theodore Sturgeon. Stanisław Lem wrote an afterword to the German edition of 1977.

Another English translation by Olena Bormashenko was published in 2012, with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin and an afterword by Boris Strugatsky.^[3]

The book has been the source of many adaptations and other inspired works in a variety of media, including stage plays, video games, and television series. The 1979 film Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, is loosely based on the novel, with a screenplay written by the Strugatsky brothers. Later, in 2007, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl the first installment of a video game franchise taking inspiration from both the book and the film would be released as well.

The term stalker became a part of the Russian language and, according to the authors, became the most popular of their neologisms. In the book, stalkers are people who trespass into the forbidden area known as the Zone and steal its valuable extraterrestrial artifacts, which the stalkers sell. In Russian, after Tarkovsky's film, the term acquired the meaning of a guide who navigates forbidden or uncharted territories; later on, urbexers and fans of industrial tourism, especially those visiting abandoned sites and ghost towns, were also called stalkers.^[4]^[5]^[6]

^ Стругацкий Борис (2003). Comments on the past. СПб.: Амфора. ISBN 5-94278-403-5.
^ Strugatsky, Arkady; Strugatsky, Boris (1977). Пикник на обочине [Roadside Picnic]. Translated by Bouis, Antonina W. New York: Macmillan Publisher, Ltd.
^ Strugatsky, Arkady; Strugatsky, Boris (2012). Roadside Picnic. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 9781613743416.
^ Morris, Holly (26 September 2014). "The Stalkers: Inside the bizarre subculture that lives to explore Chernobyl's Dead Zone". Slate. Retrieved 29 May 2023.
^ Drozd, Yulia (29 April 2021). "Chernobyl captures imaginations, brings underground tourism 35 years after nuclear disaster". ABC News. Retrieved 29 May 2023.
^ Khan, Gulnaz (22 December 2017). "See Photos Taken on Illegal Visits to Chernobyl's Dead Zone". National Geographic. Archived from the original on March 7, 2021. Retrieved 29 May 2023.

[1] Стругацкий Борис (2003). Comments on the past. СПб.: Амфора. ISBN 5-94278-403-5.

[Note-2] Strugatsky, Arkady; Strugatsky, Boris (1977). Пикник на обочине [Roadside Picnic]. Translated by Bouis, Antonina W. New York: Macmillan Publisher, Ltd.

[Note2012-3] Strugatsky, Arkady; Strugatsky, Boris (2012). Roadside Picnic. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 9781613743416.

[4] Morris, Holly (26 September 2014). "The Stalkers: Inside the bizarre subculture that lives to explore Chernobyl's Dead Zone". Slate. Retrieved 29 May 2023.

[5] Drozd, Yulia (29 April 2021). "Chernobyl captures imaginations, brings underground tourism 35 years after nuclear disaster". ABC News. Retrieved 29 May 2023.

[6] Khan, Gulnaz (22 December 2017). "See Photos Taken on Illegal Visits to Chernobyl's Dead Zone". National Geographic. Archived from the original on March 7, 2021. Retrieved 29 May 2023.

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