ABOUT SVETLANA ALEXIEVICH

Svetlana Alexievich was born in Ukraine in 1948 and was raised and educated in Belarus. She trained as a journalist but was soon drawn to literature. Influenced by the Belarussian writer Ales Adamovich, Alexievich went on to create her own genre, which she has described as “a chorus of individual voices and a collage of everyday details.” Researching and writing her books, she says, allows her to be “simultaneously a writer, reporter, sociologist, psychologist, and preacher.”

Alexievich’s nonfiction books have been published in more than 50 countries and translated into more than 40 languages. She has also written the scripts for three plays and more than 20 documentary films. She has won many awards for her writing, including the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel Committee wrote that her “polyphonic writings… [are] a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”