Svetlana Alexievich

The people of Chernobyl talk about their lives before, during, and after the worst nuclear reactor accident in history, which occurred on April 26, 1986 in the Soviet Union in Chernobyl, a disaster that spread radioactive contamination across much of Europe. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Voices from Chernobyl

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A symphonic oral history about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia, from Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY • LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times • The Washington Post • The Boston Globe • The Wall Street Journal • NPR • Financial Times • Kirkus Reviews When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing “a new kind of literary genre,” describing her work as “a history of emotions—a history of the soul.” Alexievich’s distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation. In Secondhand Time, Alexievich chronicles the demise of communism. Everyday Russian citizens recount the past thirty years, showing us what life was like during the fall of the Soviet Union and what it’s like to live in the new Russia left in its wake. Through interviews spanning 1991 to 2012, Alexievich takes us behind the propaganda and contrived media accounts, giving us a panoramic portrait of contemporary Russia and Russians who still carry memories of oppression, terror, famine, massacres—but also of pride in their country, hope for the future, and a belief that everyone was working and fighting together to bring about a utopia. Here is an account of life in the aftermath of an idea so powerful it once dominated a third of the world. A magnificent tapestry of the sorrows and triumphs of the human spirit woven by a master, Secondhand Time tells the stories that together make up the true history of a nation. “Through the voices of those who confided in her,” The Nation writes, “Alexievich tells us about human nature, about our dreams, our choices, about good and evil—in a word, about ourselves.” Praise for Svetlana Alexievich and Secondhand Time “The nonfiction volume that has done the most to deepen the emotional understanding of Russia during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union of late is Svetlana Alexievich’s oral history Secondhand Time.”—David Remnick, The New Yorker

The Last of the Soviets

Secondhand Time

A startling history of the Chernobyl disaster by Svetlana Alexievich, the winner of the Nobel prize in literature 2015 On 26 April 1986, at 1.23am, a series of explosions shook the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Flames lit up the sky and radiation escaped to contaminate the land and poison the people for years to come. While officials tried to hush up the accident, Svetlana Alexievich spent years collecting testimonies from survivors - clean-up workers, residents, firefighters, resettlers, widows, orphans - crafting their voices into a haunting oral history of fear, anger and uncertainty, but also dark humour and love. A chronicle of the past and a warning for our nuclear future, Chernobyl Prayer shows what it is like to bear witness, and remember in a world that wants you to forget.

A Chronicle of the Future

Chernobyl Prayer

The long-awaited translation of the classic oral history of Soviet women's experiences in the Second World War - from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style, The Unwomanly Face of War is Svetlana Alexievich's collection of stories from Soviet women who lived through the Second World War: on the front lines, on the home front, and in occupied territories. As Alexievich gives voice to women who are absent from official narratives - captains, sergeants, nurses, snipers, pilots - she shows us a new version of the war we're so familiar with, creating an extraordinary alternative history from their private stories. Published in 1985 in Russia and now available in English for the first time, The Unwomanly Face of War was Alexievich's first book and a huge bestseller in the Soviet Union, establishing her as a brilliantly revolutionary writer.

The Unwomanly Face of War

Bela Shayevich

Second-Hand Time

Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War

Larissa Volokhonsky

Richard Pevear

Unchildlike Stories

Last Witnesses

From the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Svetlana Alexievich, comes the first English translation of her latest work, an oral history of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia. Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive documentary style, Secondhand Time is a monument to the collapse of the USSR, charting the decline of Soviet culture and speculating on what will rise from the ashes of Communism. As in all her books, Alexievich gives voice to women and men whose stories are lost in the official narratives of nation-states, creating a powerful alternative history from the personal and private stories of individuals. Svetlana Alexievich was born in the Ukraine in 1948 and grew up in Belarus. As a newspaper journalist, she spent her early career in Minsk compiling first-hand accounts of World War II, the Soviet-Afghan War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Chernobyl meltdown. Her unflinching work—‘the whole of our history...is a huge common grave and a bloodbath’—earned her persecution from the Lukashenko regime and she was forced to emigrate. She lived in Paris, Gothenburg and Berlin before returning to Minsk in 2011. She has won a number of prizes, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Prix Médicis, and the Oxfam Novib/PEN Award. In 2015, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Bela Shayevich is a writer, translator and illustrator. Her translations have appeared in journals such as Little Star, St. Petersburg Review, and Calque. She was the editor of n+1 magazine’s translations of the Pussy Riot closing statements. Of Alexievich’s writing, she says it is ‘resounding with nothing but the truth’. ‘The force of her work, the source of its power and plausibility, is the choice of a generation (her own) as a major subject and the close attention to its major inflection point, which was the end of the Soviet Union...Her method is the close interrogation of the past through the collection of individual voices; patient in overcoming cliché, attentive to the unexpected, and restrained in the exposition, her writing reaches those far beyond her own experiences and preoccupations, far beyond her generation, and far beyond the lands of the former Soviet Union.’ New York Review of Books ‘For the past thirty or forty years she’s been busy mapping the Soviet and post-Soviet individual. But it’s not really a history of events. It’s a history of emotions.’ Sara Danius, Permanent Secretary, Swedish Academy ‘Alexievich builds her narratives about Russian national traumas...by interviewing those who lived them, and immersing herself deeply in their testimonies. But her voice is much more than the sum of their voices.’ New Yorker ‘[A] masterpiece...a magnificent work of literary art. This vast panorama can justly be regarded I think as the War and Peace of our age.’ Age ‘It’s a meaty read and also incredibly significant and respectful to those whose stories appear in its pages.’ Readings ‘A mosaic of pain and loss, hope and betrayal, fear and anger. It is profoundly moving. At its heart though is a deep empathy for a people who have experienced some of the worst humanity, yet found a way to cope. It is both inspiring and devastating.’ Herald Sun ‘Secondhand Time is a majestic portrait of Soviet life.’ Australian ‘A rich and textured history.’ Best Books of 2016, New Zealand Listener ‘A deeply empathic oral history of the disintegration of the Soviet Union; open at any page and you will be moved.’ Best Non-Fiction Books of 2016, Readings ‘If I had to punt now on which book will be on the most best-of lists here and overseas, it would be Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, the stunning oral history by the 2015 Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich.’ Australian ‘Harrowing...To describe the book as a vast collection of oral testimonies is to underestimate the achievement of this superbly crafted “history of human feelings."’ Louise Adler, Best Books of 2016, Australian ‘The goddess of ‘‘high journalism’’— that form without a name—is Svetlana Alexievich...Her masterpiece, Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, [is] a panorama of the lives of ordinary people who lived through the collapse of the Soviet Union. I’ve never read anything to touch her work—the tremendous scale of her inquiry, and yet the intimacy of the experiences she records. Her powers of compression fill me with awe.’ Helen Garner, Best Books of 2016, Australian ‘The book of the year, if not the decade...Alexievich is not the author so much as the compiler of this collective self-portrait. The quality of focus, attention and empathy in her work of listening and interviewing is balanced by the depth of emotion—love, desire, longing for grace—that she records in her subjects...Both in formal terms, as a piece of literature, and in moral terms, as a tribute to the human spirit, this is an essential work.’ Nicolas Rothwell, Best Books of 2016, Australian ‘At once intimate and cosmic...The individual testimony is sometimes harrowing—enough to make me drop the book into my lap, tilt my head back and close my eyes — but upon reflection the voices come together to become a kind of untamed fugue about love: love of family, love of home, love of country, love of the natural world.’ Melinda Harvey, Best Books of 2016, Australian ‘Scenes from Svetlana Alexievich’s majestic Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets have lingered with me like fever dreams.’ Mireille Juchau, Best Books of 2016, Australian ‘An utterly authentic and often harrowing history of extraordinary times.’ Listener ‘One of the most compelling books that I’ve read in a while...Full of hope and disillusionment, humour and anger, it’s a moving testament to the lives history leaves in its wake.’ Diane Stubbings, Australian, Books of the Year 2017

Kızıl İnsanın Sonu

İkinci El Zaman

Vozes de Chernobyl

CECILIA ROSAS

A história das guerras costuma ser contada sob o ponto de vista masculino - soldados e generais, algozes e libertadores. Trata-se, porém, de um equívoco e de uma injustiça. Se em muitos conflitos as mulheres ficaram na retaguarda, em outros estiveram na linha de frente. É esse capítulo de bravura feminina que Svetlana Aleksiévitch reconstrói neste livro absolutamente apaixonante e forte. Quase um milhão de mulheres lutaram no Exército Vermelho durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, mas a sua história nunca foi contada. Svetlana Alexiévitch deixa que as vozes dessas mulheres ressoem de forma angustiante e arrebatadora, em memórias que evocam frio, fome, violência sexual e a sombra onipresente da morte.

A GUERRA NAO TEM ROSTO DE MULHER

Kadın Yok Savaşın Yüzünde

Wydawnictwo Czarne

kronika przyszłości

Czarnobylska modlitwa

The haunting history of the Soviet-Afghan War from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2015 - A new translation based on the updated text - From 1979 to 1989 Soviet troops engaged in a devastating war in Afghanistan that claimed thousands of casualties on both sides. While the Soviet Union talked about a 'peace-keeping' mission, the dead were shipped back in sealed zinc coffins. Boys in Zinc presents the honest testimonies of soldiers, doctors and nurses, mothers, wives and siblings who describe the lasting effects of war. Weaving together their stories, Svetlana Alexievich shows us the truth of the Soviet-Afghan conflict: the killing and the beauty of small everyday moments, the shame of returned veterans, the worries of all those left behind. When it was first published in the USSR in 1991, Boys in Zinc sparked huge controversy for its unflinching, harrowing insight into the realities of war.

Boys in Zinc

Gelecegin Tarihi

Cernobil Duasi

Son Taniklar

Lucas Simone

O povo russo assistiu com espanto à queda do Império Soviético. A política de abertura do governo Gorbatchóv impôs uma mudança drástica da estrutura social, do cotidiano e, sobretudo, da direção ideológica da população. Em O fim do homem soviético, Svetlana Aleksiévitch examina a vida das pessoas afetadas por essa transformação. Em cada personagem está um pouco da história russa a mãe cuja filha morreu em um atentado; a antiga funcionária do Partido Comunista que coleciona carteiras abandonadas de ex-filiados; o velho militante que passou dez anos em um campo de trabalhos forçados. O livro traz um painel fantástico de russos de todas as idades que se movem entre a possibilidade de uma vida diferente e a derrocada da sociedade que conhecem.

O fim do homem soviético

"This book is a confession, a document and a record of people's memory. More than 200 women speak in it, describing how young girls, who dreamed of becoming brides, became soldiers in 1941. More than 500,000 Soviet women participated on a par with men in the Second World War, the most terrible war of the 20th century. Women not only rescued and bandaged the wounded but also fires a sniper's rifle, blew up bridges, went reconnoitering and killed... They killed the enemy who, with unprecedented cruelty, had attacked their land, their homes and their children. Soviet writer of Byelorussia, Svetlana Alexiyevich spent four years working on the book, visiting over 100 cities and towns, settlements and villages and recording the stories and reminiscences of women war veterans. The soviet press called the book 'a vivid reporting of events long past, which affected the destiny of the nation as a whole.' The most important thing about the book is not so much the front-line episodes as women's heart-rending experiences in the war. Through their testimony the past makes an impassioned appeal to the present, denouncing yesterday's and today's fascism..."--

Svetlana Alexievich

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