Get to know the 14th Female Nobel Prize award winner- Svetlana Alexievich

There was a time when women were struggling for recognition. Today, women are at the heart of it. Svetlana Alexievich has become the 14^th woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Svetlana, who hails from Belarus is widely known for her knowledge of the failure of Soviet Union, the war with Afghanistan and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and of course the women soldiers in the war. The 67-year-old Svetlana achieved this award for a book she wrote 30 years back called The Unwomanly Face of the War.

Her vast knowledge of the war made her record true accounts of women from the war with the Nazis. Svetlana has also written short stories, essays, interviews and reportage related to the Soviet Union and was very much moved by her fellow Belarusian writer Ales Adamovich. She is a journalist and a writer who often combined both her professions in her work. Her work echoes the voices of men and women who were present during great events in the history like the seizure of Afghanistan by Soviet Union in 1979-89.

“By means of her extraordinary method — a carefully composed collage of human voices — Alexievich deepens our comprehension of an entire era,” said the Swedish Academy, reports The New York Times.

Her book recollects the interviews she had with over hundreds of women who participated in World War 2. Major part of her has been dedicated to showcasing the point of view of the common people who lived through the era. However, the fact that her accounts challenged the official narrative itself and her kept on recording them still, made her unapologetically fearless.

Her books have been translated many times in French, German and Swedish winning an array of prizes for her work. Alexievich led the odds for the 2015 award, ahead of Japan’s Haruki Murakami, Kenya’s Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and the Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse, stats The Guardian.

Sources- Independent, The New York Times and The Guardian

Picture Credit- The New Yorker