Svetlana Alexievich Marks Her Birthday Today

The Nobel Prize winner turns 75.

On May 31, 1948, the Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich was born — the author of Chernobyl Prayer and War’s Unwomanly Face.

Svetlana Alexievich was born in the city of Stanislav (today Ivano-Frankivsk) in Ukraine to a Belarusian and Ukrainian family. After the father was demobilized, the family returned to Belarus.

Alexievich graduated from the Kapatkevichy secondary school (Petrykau district), after graduation she worked as a correspondent for the Naroulya district newspaper.

In 1967 she entered the faculty of journalism of the Belarusian State University, from which she graduated in 1972. She worked in the Biaroza district newspaper Mayak Kommunizma, and worked as a school teacher. Then she worked in the Minsk newspaper Selskaya Gazeta, in 1976-1984 she headed the department of essays and journalism of the magazine Neman.

Svetlana made her debut as a writer in 1975. Author of the documentary books War’s Unwomanly Face (1985), The Last Witnesses (1985), Boys in Zinc (1989), Enchanted by Death (1993), Chernobyl Prayer (1997).

Svetlana Alexievich's books have been translated and published in more than 20 countries around the world. She is the scriptwriter for 21 films.

In 2015, the writer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for the cycle of works Voices of Utopia, consisting of six books: War’s Unwomanly Face, Boys in Zinc, Enchanted by Death, The Last Witnesses, Chernobyl Prayer, Secondhand time. The award was presented to her with the wording for the “polyphonic sound” of prose and “perpetuation of suffering and courage”.