Books by Svetlana Alexievich
Svetlana Alexievich was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Belarusian to receive the award. “The quality of the writing, the stories she tells, are very absorbing.” Stephanie Flanders, chair of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction (2016).
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets
by Svetlana Alexievich
☆ Shortlisted for the 2016 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
“The power comes from the stories themselves, the people she found and talked to. Some are in the Caucasus and different parts of the country, people trapped in different Republics, who then face terrible discrimination and have undergone horrible experiences. There are others who, at the time property rights were being established, had their houses or apartments stolen from them by mafia groups. In some ways, this book is backward looking because it’s reminding people how fast Russia has changed and how many people that change has left behind. It’s about how dark the lives are of some of those people, who were brought up in a completely different environment. The book doesn’t have a traditional narrative structure. It’s not one you read in a straightforward way. It’s one you dip into, or pick up and become absorbed by for an hour or so and then step away from. But as a piece of reportage, it’s an extraordinary achievement.” Read more...
Stephanie Flanders, Economist
“Alexievich is a Belarusian investigative journalist, essayist, and oral historian. In 2015, she became the first journalist to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The wider literary aim of all her books is to capture the lost cultures of Soviet and post-Soviet communities…The Chernobyl disaster had a devastating impact on the community that was there in terms of all the lives lost and the environment becoming toxic—and with that a whole way of life, a whole cultural memory and way of being in the world. ..Alexievich writes about this book as being a missing history.” Read more...
The best books on Tech Utopias and Dystopias
Mahlet Zimeta, Philosopher
Interviews where books by Svetlana Alexievich were recommended
-
1
Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions
by Fredric Jameson -
2
The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music
by Friedrich Nietzsche -
3
How Does Government Listen to Scientists?
by Claire Craig -
4
Voices From Chernobyl
by Svetlana Alexievich -
5
Citizen: An American Lyric
by Claudia Rankine
The best books on Tech Utopias and Dystopias, recommended by Mahlet Zimeta
The best books on Tech Utopias and Dystopias, recommended by Mahlet Zimeta
As advances in AI lead some to dream of utopia, the reality is that dystopia is a lot easier to get to, says tech policy adviser Mahlet Zimeta. She recommends books to think more deeply about how technology affects the world around us, from Nietzsche to Chernobyl and from poetry to speculative fiction.
Five of the Best Works of Belarusian Literature, recommended by Hanna Komar
Writers have been subject to persecution and repression in Belarus, and increasingly so in the aftermath of the protests that swept the nation in 2020 and 2021. Owning or distributing books deemed ‘extremist’ by the Lukashenko government can be enough to land you in jail. Here, the poet and activist Hanna Komar selects five of the best works of Belarusian literature that offer a glimpse of the culture and mindset of this post-Soviet nation, and the bravery of those who continue to fight for political freedom.
-
1
Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy
by Serhii Plokhy -
2
Producing Power: The Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry
by Sonja D Schmid -
3
Voices From Chernobyl
by Svetlana Alexievich -
4
Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project
by Peter Bacon Hales -
5
The Politics of Invisibility: Public Knowledge about Radiation Health Effects after Chernobyl
by Olga Kuchinskaya
The best books on Chernobyl, recommended by Kate Brown
The best books on Chernobyl, recommended by Kate Brown
While widely regarded as the world’s worst nuclear accident, Chernobyl’s legacy remains fiercely contested, with death tolls ranging from 31 to 200,000. MIT historian Kate Brown, who has spent years in the Chernobyl archives, picks the best books on the disaster, compares its impact with atomic bomb testing, and argues for more research into low-dose radiation exposure
-
1
Pollution is Colonialism
by Max Liboiron -
2
Living Downstream: An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment
by Sandra Steingraber -
3
Dumping in Dixie
by Robert Bullard -
4
Voices From Chernobyl
by Svetlana Alexievich -
5
Silent Snow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic
by Marla Cone -
6
Plastic Ocean
by Charles Moore
The best books on Pollution, recommended by Rebecca Altman
The best books on Pollution, recommended by Rebecca Altman
‘One of the themes that I hope shines through is the significance of the act of witnessing. These books have all been influential, and as a result, all stand as testaments to the cascading influence one person can have.’
-
1
The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between
by Hisham Matar -
2
Negroland: A Memoir
by Margo Jefferson -
3
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets
by Svetlana Alexievich -
4
East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity
by Philippe Sands -
5
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War
by Robert J. Gordon
Best Nonfiction Books of 2016, recommended by Stephanie Flanders
Best Nonfiction Books of 2016, recommended by Stephanie Flanders
Stephanie Flanders, chair of this year’s Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, talks us through some of the best nonfiction books of 2016.
Five of the Best Works of Belarusian Literature recommended by Hanna Komar