Submission + - "Voices from Chernobyl" author Svetlana Alexievich win Lit Nobel (theguardian.com)
Lawrence Bottorff writes: The author of Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, Svetlana Alexievich, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Somewhat surprising is the fact that she is an investigative journalist and not a fiction writer/novelist. And yet her "novels in voices" style has, as the Nobel jurists believe, clearly a literary impact. Here's what Wikipedia says about Voices from Chernobyl:
"Alexievich was a journalist living in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, at the time of the Chernobyl disaster. She interviewed more than 500 eyewitnesses, including firefighters, liquidators (members of the cleanup team), politicians, physicians, physicists, and ordinary citizens, over a period of 10 years. The book relates the psychological and personal tragedy of the Chernobyl accident, and explores the experiences of individuals and how the disaster affected their lives."
Although the Nobel lit prize is awarded based on "lifetime work" rather than an individual book, Voices... is her best-known and most celebrated work.
"Alexievich was a journalist living in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, at the time of the Chernobyl disaster. She interviewed more than 500 eyewitnesses, including firefighters, liquidators (members of the cleanup team), politicians, physicians, physicists, and ordinary citizens, over a period of 10 years. The book relates the psychological and personal tragedy of the Chernobyl accident, and explores the experiences of individuals and how the disaster affected their lives."
Although the Nobel lit prize is awarded based on "lifetime work" rather than an individual book, Voices... is her best-known and most celebrated work.
