Nobel
Literature Prize to journalist/writer who gives voice to voiceless
(Vatican
Radio) Free speech advocates have welcomed the decision to award this year's
Nobel Prize in literature to Belarusian Svetlana Alexievich as the writer and
investigative journalist is seen as a voice of the voiceless.
Speaking
in the gilded rooms of the Royal Swedish Academy the institute's new permanent
secretary Sara Danius said Alexievich received the award "for her
polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our
times."
The
67-year old Alexievich is the 14th woman to win the literature prize and one of
the first whose work is mainly nonfiction.
Her
works often blend literature and investigative journalism. She is best known
for giving voice to women and men who lived through major events like the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that lasted from 1979 to 1989 and the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986, in which her own sister was killed and her
mother was blinded.
FACE
OF WAR
However
the Royal Swedish Academy's permanent secretary recommended readers unfamiliar
with this year's winner to start with her book "The Unwomanly Face of
War". It is based on hundreds of moving deep interviews with female
participants in the Second World War while serving in the Soviet Union's Red
Army.
Writers'
free-speech group English PEN called Nobel literature laureate Alexievich
"a tireless chronicler of voices which might not otherwise be
heard," and said it hoped her victory would encourage the Belarus
government to improve its human rights record.
Alexievich
spent several years living outside Belarus after criticizing the country's
authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is up for re-election on
Sunday.
In
an interview, the author said however that winning the Nobel Prize in
literature left her with a "complicated" feeling as it reminded her
to to other Russian writers who have won the prize. She recalled that she was
at home "ironing" when the academy gave her the call of calls.
Asked
what she was going to do with the 8 million Swedish kronor (about $960,000)
prize money, she said:
"I
do only one thing: I buy freedom for myself. It takes me a long time to write
my books, from five to 10 years."
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