Learn All About The Brave Journalist Svetlana Alexeyevich

Most people had never heard of Svetlana Alexeyevich until she won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015. It was the first time in history that a journalist won this prize for investigative non-fiction.

Until then, only poets and fiction writers had won the prize. Svetlana Alexeyevich’s work is, in contrast, inspired by real people and events. She captured the reality of the Soviet world and her own country, Belarus, better than anyone else.

Her most famous book, Prayer for Chernobyl ( Voices of Chernobyl in English), has been translated into 20 languages. But no one in Alexeyevich’s home country can read the book because the authorities have banned it. This fact alone gives you an idea of ​​how important this great contemporary writer is.

Echoes from childhood

Svetlana Alexeyevich was born by accident in a Ukrainian city called Stanislav. We say by accident, because her father, a member of the Belarusian military, was temporarily deployed there.

Stanislav himself tells a story of instability. It was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Western Ukraine, Poland, the Soviet Union, Germany, and finally Belarus. Stanislav no longer exists. Now the city is called Ivano-Frankivsk.

Alexeyevich was born on May 31, 1948. Her mother was a teacher in the countryside, and so was her father (in addition to being in the military). Political instability marked her childhood and adolescence. She later studied journalism at the State University of Belarus.

Svetlana Alexeyevich: A Bold Journalist

A remarkable Soviet writer named Ales Adamovich is one of Alexeyevich’s greatest sources of inspiration. He was one of the authors who developed a new genre he called “evidence-novel”, “collective novel”, “epic choir” or “novel-oratario”. The genre is a hybrid between journalism and literature.

After working for a couple of newspapers, Alexeyevich began working on deeper projects. She became a restless traveler, crossing boundaries for testimonies from survivors of major historical events. That’s when she started writing great reports.

In 1985, she published her first book, The War Has No Female Face . It included a series of interviews with women living during World War II. The newspaper she worked for when the book came out, fired her and accused her of dishonoring the national honor of the Soviet Union.

A brave woman

In 1989, Svetlana Alexeyevich published Coffins of Zinc  after conducting 500 interviews. The people she interviewed had taken part in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In her book, she condemned many cases of human rights violations. As a result of her actions, the authorities forced her to go to court.

Her outspoken criticism of the Soviet Union led her to seek political asylum in 1991. Since then, she has lived in various European countries.

In 1997, Svetlana Alexeyevich published Prayer for Chernobyl, which is her masterpiece. In this book, she shares testimonies from victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It took her about 10 years to gather all the material for the book. Her work highlighted the serious mistakes made by the authorities during the disaster. 

Svetlana Alexeyevich: Disappointment and Honor

Svetlana Alexeyevich’s writing explores human drama and its consequences. Her work is touching, as she manages to communicate the deep paradoxes of great historical moments, especially those associated with the Soviet Union.

These events directly affected Alexeyevich – she herself was a victim of war and rebellion. When she was little, her parents fled the war. As an adult, the Chernobyl disaster left her mother blind and killed her sister. She also suffered from grief after exile and the impossibility of returning to her homeland.

Alexeyevich has received many awards for his work during his career. As we mentioned above, she was the first (and so far only) non-fiction writer to win the Nobel Prize. Today she continues to write and try to understand human evil and goodness.