by Mark Linnhoefer – The Belarusian journalist and author of historical books, well known for her chronicle of the Chernobyl disaster, received the Nobel Prize for literature on Thursday. She was awarded “for her polyphonic writings” that are “a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”
The author of “The Chernobyl Prayer” says that she talks to 500 to 700 people in order to write their chronicles in her books and dubs herself a “person of the ear.” She describes her writing as an amalgam of emotions and feelings saying that she is not trying to merely “exchange facts and information” but to write a “history of human feeling” that reflects the “illusion, hopes, and fears they experienced.” She goes on to say that her novels are “novels of voices” that allow many people to contribute and that her work is essentially “lying on the ground” and that all she does is “pick it up and … put it together.”
Her works have gotten her on the bad side of the Soviet, post-Soviet, and Belarusian governments over the years – she was accused of dissidence, de-glorification and of simply being too independent.
Out of the 107 times that the Nobel Prize for literature has been awarded, Alexieviech is only the 14th woman and one of the few historians to ever win.
Svetlana Alexieviech’s books truly offer an unparalleled insight into the actual emotional world “of the Soviet and post-Soviet person.” The sheer magnitude of different opinions and views and comments that are subtly weaved into her novels, coupled with her unique writing style, have rightfully won her the most prestigious literary award on earth.
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