“Alexievich serves no ideology, only an ideal: to listen closely enough to the ordinary voices of her time to orchestrate them into extraordinary books”
Philip Gourevitch
“the voice of modern Russia”
Huffington Post
Svetlana Alexievich is no ordinary reporter. When she won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year, it was the first time that a non-fiction writer had received the award since Winston Churchill in 1953. For more than 30 years her meticulously researched and boldly innovative books have given voice to the voiceless, showing readers what it really feels like to be caught up in catastrophes like Chernobyl, and inventing a new literary form in the process. For this special event – her first ever talk in Western Europe – Alexievich talks to [tbc] about Second-Hand Time, another groundbreaking blend of reportage and oral history tracing the lives of ordinary people during the collapse of the USSR.
The event will be chaired by Conor O'Clery, Moscow Bureau Chief with the Irish Times from 1987-1991, and author of Moscow, December 25, 1991, The Last Day of the Soviet Union