Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015.
The Swedish Academy praised her polyphonic writings, described as a monument to suffering and courage in the contemporary age. Alexievich’s books are built largely from recorded testimonies, allowing many individual voices to illuminate major historical events.
Born in 1948 in Stanislav, in what is now Ukraine, she grew up in Belarus and writes in Russian. Her subjects include the Second World War, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Chernobyl disaster, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Important works include Voices from Chernobyl and The Unwomanly Face of War.
Alexievich is often associated with documentary prose, oral history, and literary journalism. She became the fourteenth woman to receive the Nobel Literature prize and the first Belarusian writer to win it.