STOCKHOLM: Belarussian writer Svetlana Alexievich won the 2015 Nobel Literature Prize on Thursday for her work chronicling the horrors of war and life under the Soviet regime.

The Swedish Academy hailed the 67-year-old for writings that were “a monument to suffering and courage in our time” — tableaux of World War II, Chernobyl and the war in Afghanistan, crafted through thousands of interviews.

“By means of her extraordinary method — a carefully composed collage of human voices — Alexievich deepens our comprehension of an entire era,” the academy said.

The author dedicated the prize to her native Belarus. “It’s not an award for me but for our culture, for our small country, which has been caught in a grinder throughout history,” she told reporters in Minsk.

History showed there was no place for compromise when faced with oppression, Ms Alexievich added.

“In our time, it is difficult to be an honest person,” she said. “There is no need to give in to the compromise that totalitarian regimes always count on.”

She tore into Russia under President Vladimir Putin. “I love the Russian world, but the kind, humane Russian world,” she said.

“I do not love Beria, Stalin, Putin... how low they let Russia sink,” she said, referring to the former Soviet leader and his head of the secret police.

Ms Alexievich, only the 14th woman to win the prize since it was first awarded in 1901, had been the top choice among literary observers and bookies. The last woman to win was Canada’s Alice Munro in 2013.

The author has seen her works translated into numerous languages and has scooped several international awards.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2015

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