With a reporter's eye and an artist's heart, Svetlana Alexievich writes
of the catastrophes, upheaval and personal woes that have afflicted the
Soviet Union and the troubled countries that succeeded it. Her writings,
characterized by plain language and detail so visceral it's sometimes
painful to read, won her this year's Nobel literature prize.
She is an unusual choice. The Swedish Academy, which picks the prestigious literature laureates, has only twice before bestowed the award on non-fiction — to Winston Churchill and Bertrand Russell — and had never honored journalistic work with a Nobel.
