Svetlana Alexievich | Academy of Achievement

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created a new literary form to tell the story of modern Russia, not through the acts of parliaments and presidents, but with the voices of ordinary men and women, swept along by the currents of history. In her “novels of voices” she orchestrates hundreds of interviews into a symphonic panorama of history. Her magnum opus, Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, examines the collapse of the Soviet Union and its aftermath, when hundreds of millions of men and women saw everything they had believed in swept away virtually overnight. In their struggle to adapt to a new way of life, Alexievich hears a people trapped between the failed dream of a socialist utopia and the “spiritual wasteland” of a society based solely on the pursuit of material gain. In awarding Alexievich the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy praised her work as “a monument to suffering and courage in our time.” While her books focus with unflinching honesty on the people of her homeland, they speak in loud, clear voices to all of us."/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/svetlana-alexievich/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Svetlana Alexievich | Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<div class="page" title="Page 25"> <div class="layoutArea"> <div class="column"> Svetlana Alexievich has created a new literary form to tell the story of modern Russia, not through the acts of parliaments and presidents, but with the voices of ordinary men and women, swept along by the currents of history. In her “novels of voices” she orchestrates hundreds of interviews into a symphonic panorama of history. Her magnum opus, <em>Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets</em>, examines the collapse of the Soviet Union and its aftermath, when hundreds of millions of men and women saw everything they had believed in swept away virtually overnight. In their struggle to adapt to a new way of life, Alexievich hears a people trapped between the failed dream of a socialist utopia and the “spiritual wasteland” of a society based solely on the pursuit of material gain. In awarding Alexievich the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy praised her work as “a monument to suffering and courage in our time.” While her books focus with unflinching honesty on the people of her homeland, they speak in loud, clear voices to all of us. </div> </div> </div>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/svetlana-alexievich/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2019-07-10T13:57:15+00:00"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/alexievich-Feature-Image-3-1.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@achievers1961"/> <script type="application/ld+json" class="yoast-schema-graph">{"@context":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/#organization","name":"Academy of Achievement","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/","sameAs":["https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChe_87uh1H-NIMf3ndTjPFw","https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://twitter.com/achievers1961"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","contentUrl":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Academy of Achievement"},"image":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/#website","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/","name":"Academy of Achievement","description":"A museum of living history","publisher":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/search/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/svetlana-alexievich/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/alexievich-Feature-Image-3-1.jpg","contentUrl":"/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/alexievich-Feature-Image-3-1.jpg","width":2800,"height":1120},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/svetlana-alexievich/#webpage","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/svetlana-alexievich/","name":"Svetlana Alexievich | Academy of Achievement","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/svetlana-alexievich/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2018-10-12T04:58:09+00:00","dateModified":"2019-07-10T13:57:15+00:00","description":"Svetlana Alexievich has created a new literary form to tell the story of modern Russia, not through the acts of parliaments and presidents, but with the voices of ordinary men and women, swept along by the currents of history. 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| /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/alexievich-Feature-Image-3-1.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Svetlana Alexievich</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Nobel Prize In Literature</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-52995 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-author careers-writer"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">Educated people can be influenced by propaganda, but common people look at life simply and they tell the truth — the story as it is.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">The Novel of Voices</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> May 31, 1948 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>Svetlana Alexandrovna Alexievich was born in the town of Stanislav — since renamed Ivano-Frankivsk — in western Ukraine.  Her mother was Ukrainian, her father Belarusian, and Svetlana grew up in a small village in her father’s homeland of Belarus.  At the time, Ukraine and Belarus were two of the 15 constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).  Under Soviet rule, Russian was the dominant language.  Svetlana’s parents were schoolteachers, and she grew up steeped in the traditions of Russian literature.</p> <figure id="attachment_53009" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53009" style="width: 2000px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-53009 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/January-2005-paris-GettyImages-56513690.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-53009 lazyload" alt="" width="2000" height="3008" data-sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/January-2005-paris-GettyImages-56513690.jpg 2000w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/January-2005-paris-GettyImages-56513690-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/January-2005-paris-GettyImages-56513690-505x760.jpg 505w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/January-2005-paris-GettyImages-56513690.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53009" class="wp-caption-text">January 18, 2005: Svetlana Alexievich in Paris, France. Alexievich was born on May 31, 1948, in the Ukrainian town of Ivano-Frankivsk. Her father was Belarusian and her mother Ukrainian. Svetlana Alexievich was raised in her father’s hometown of Belarus and studied to be a journalist at the University of Minsk. (Ulf Andersen and Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>From an early age, she was fascinated by tales that the women of her village told of the terrible times they had lived through.  They spoke of revolution, civil war, famine, terror, and above all, the Second World War. From 1941 to 1945, the Soviet Union repelled invasion by Hitler’s Germany in the largest and most destructive struggle in the history of warfare.  More than 20 million Soviet citizens were killed in the war — the actual figure may be as high as 27 million.  Belarus alone lost a third of its population, and no one who survived was untouched by the suffering of the war years.  These stories have haunted Alexievich all her life and inspired much of her later work.</p> <figure id="attachment_53037" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53037" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-53037 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-Wars-Unwomanly-Face-in-swedish-GettyImages-491797952.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-53037 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1701" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-Wars-Unwomanly-Face-in-swedish-GettyImages-491797952.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-Wars-Unwomanly-Face-in-swedish-GettyImages-491797952-380x284.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-Wars-Unwomanly-Face-in-swedish-GettyImages-491797952-760x567.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-Wars-Unwomanly-Face-in-swedish-GettyImages-491797952.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53037" class="wp-caption-text"><em>The Unwomanly Face of War</em> (Swedish copy) and <em>The Last Witnesses: The Book of Unchildlike Stories </em>(German copy) by Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich, published in 1985. In 1983, Alexievich completed <em>The Unwomanly Face of War</em>. For two years, it was sitting at a publishing house but was not published. Alexievich was accused of pacifism, naturalism, and de-glorification of the heroic Soviet woman. On order of the Belarusian Central Committee of the Communist Party, the completed book was destroyed and Alexievich was accused of anti-Communist and anti-government views. But new times came with Mikhail Gorbachev’s ascent to power and the start of <em>perestroika</em>. In 1985, <em>The Unwomanly Face of War</em> came out simultaneously in Minsk and in Moscow. In the same year, <em>The Last Witnesses: 100 Unchildlike Stories</em> was published. Critics called both books “a discovery in the genre of war prose,” the war seen through women’s and children’s eyes. (Photo credit: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP and Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>Svetlana Alexievich began working as a reporter for local newspapers shortly after graduating from secondary school.  As a student at the Belarus State University in Minsk, she studied with the Belarusian writer Ales Adamovich, a former partisan fighter who compiled stirring oral histories of the war.  To this day, Alexievich credits Adamovich as the writer who has had the single greatest influence on her own work.</p> <figure id="attachment_53063" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53063" style="width: 1530px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-53063 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1990-wp-zinky-boys-the-boys-in-zink-1.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-53063 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="1530" height="2266" data-sizes="(max-width: 1530px) 100vw, 1530px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1990-wp-zinky-boys-the-boys-in-zink-1.jpg 1530w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1990-wp-zinky-boys-the-boys-in-zink-1-257x380.jpg 257w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1990-wp-zinky-boys-the-boys-in-zink-1-513x760.jpg 513w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1990-wp-zinky-boys-the-boys-in-zink-1.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53063" class="wp-caption-text">1990: <em>The Boys in Zinc (Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War)</em> by Svetlana Alexievich is a book about the criminal Soviet-Afghan War, which had been hidden from the Soviet people for ten years. Alexievich traveled around the country for four years to meet war victims’ mothers and veterans of the Afghan War. She also visited the war zone in Afghanistan. Creating controversy and outrage when it was first published in the USSR — the book was called by military and Communist papers a “slanderous piece of fantasy” and part of a “hysterical chorus of malign attacks” — <em>The Boys in Zinc</em> presents the candid and affecting testimony of the officers and grunts, nurses and prostitutes, mothers, sons, and daughters who describe the war and its lasting effects. (© Penguin Random)</figcaption></figure> <p>Although Alexievich enjoyed some success as a journalist and interviewer, when she began to craft a book from women’s memories of the war, Soviet publishers rejected them for not conforming to the official heroic narrative of Soviet victory in the “Great Patriotic War.”  Unlike the women of the other combatant nations, Soviet women served in combat, fighting and dying alongside their male comrades in the desperate defense of their ravaged homeland.  In selecting and preserving their memories, Alexievich emphasized the details ignored in other accounts of the war — the countless small ways in which women warriors fought not only to save their country but to preserve their own humanity in the most dehumanizing circumstances.</p> <figure id="attachment_53052" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53052" style="width: 946px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-53052 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1997-wp-voices-from-chernobyl-1.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-53052 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="946" height="1360" data-sizes="(max-width: 946px) 100vw, 946px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1997-wp-voices-from-chernobyl-1.jpg 946w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1997-wp-voices-from-chernobyl-1-264x380.jpg 264w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1997-wp-voices-from-chernobyl-1-529x760.jpg 529w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1997-wp-voices-from-chernobyl-1.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53052" class="wp-caption-text">1997: V<em>oices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster (Chernobyl Prayer)</em> by Svetlana Alexievich. On April 25-26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, and contaminated as much as three-quarters of Europe. <em>Voices from Chernobyl</em> is the first book to present personal accounts of the tragedy. Journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown — from innocent citizens to firefighters to those called in to clean up the disaster — revealing the great fear, anger, and uncertainty with which they still live.</figcaption></figure> <p>In the mid-1980s, a new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, promoted a policy of <em>glasnost</em> or openness.  An abridged version of Alexievich’s book <em>The Unwomanly Face of War</em> appeared in a Soviet literary journal in 1984, and the following year, with Gorbachev’s implied blessing, the entire work was published in book form.  <em>The Unwomanly Face of War</em> was an immediate success in the Soviet Union and abroad and soon sold over two million copies.  Alexievich followed it with <em>The Last Witnesses</em>, compiled from the accounts of those who survived the war as children.</p> <p>In these and her subsequent books, Alexievich has edited lengthy interviews into tiny fragments, placing them one by one into a complex but coherent narrative.  Allowing her subjects to speak for themselves, she has progressively minimized her own role as interpreter or commentator.  The effect of her work has been compared variously to a mosaic or a choral symphony, in which many voices are heard, creating a detailed panoramic picture of a given era in history.</p> <figure id="attachment_53035" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53035" style="width: 4486px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-53035 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-June-19-2012-AP_874456463727.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-53035 lazyload" alt="" width="4486" height="3278" data-sizes="(max-width: 4486px) 100vw, 4486px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-June-19-2012-AP_874456463727.jpg 4486w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-June-19-2012-AP_874456463727-380x278.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-June-19-2012-AP_874456463727-760x555.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-June-19-2012-AP_874456463727.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53035" class="wp-caption-text">June 19, 2012: Svetlana Alexievich photographed in Minsk, Belarus, where she currently resides. In Minsk, she has worked at the newspaper <em>Sel’skaja Gazeta</em>. Her criticism of the political regimes in the Soviet Union and Belarus has periodically forced her to live abroad; for example, in Italy, France, Germany, and Sweden. (Writer Pictures/AP)</figcaption></figure> <p>In the last years of the Soviet Union, Alexievich’s books found great favor with everyday readers and official recognition from the literary establishment.  She received the USSR’s Order of the Badge of Honour and awards from the Union of Soviet Writers and the nation’s <em>Literaturnaya Gazeta </em>(<em>Literary Newspaper</em>).</p> <p>In 1991, as the Soviet Union was coming to an end, Alexievich published an oral history of one of the system’s last traumatic chapters, its long and inconclusive war in Afghanistan.  Translated literally as <em>Zinky Boys</em> in the United States, and as <em>Boys in Zinc</em> in the United Kingdom, the title refers to the zinc coffins in which the remains of Soviet soldiers were returned home for burial.  Many of the interview subjects described atrocities they had witnessed or participated in, shocking readers accustomed to the sanitized war stories Soviet authors had published for over half a century.</p> <figure id="attachment_53032" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53032" style="width: 1650px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-53032 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2013-wp-secondhand-time.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-53032 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="1650" height="2475" data-sizes="(max-width: 1650px) 100vw, 1650px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2013-wp-secondhand-time.jpg 1650w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2013-wp-secondhand-time-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2013-wp-secondhand-time-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2013-wp-secondhand-time.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53032" class="wp-caption-text">2013: <em>Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets</em> by Svetlana Alexievich. In <em>Secondhand Time</em>, Alexievich chronicles the demise of communism. Everyday Russian citizens recall the past 30 years, showing us what life was like during the fall of the Soviet Union and what it’s like to live in the new Russia left in its wake. Through interviews spanning 1991 to 2012, Alexievich takes us behind the propaganda and contrived media accounts, giving us a panoramic portrait of contemporary Russia — and the Russians who carry memories of oppression, terror, famine, and massacres, as well as pride in their country, hope for the future, and the belief that everyone was working and fighting together to bring about a utopia. Here is an account of life in the aftermath of an idea so powerful, it once dominated a third of the world — a stunning tapestry of the sorrows and triumphs of the human spirit. (Penguin)</figcaption></figure> <p>The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the communist system wrought enormous changes in the lives of Russians and of all the former citizens of the Union.  For many, the loss of an old way of life and the system of beliefs that justified it was unbearable.  Alexievich documented many such cases in her 1993 book, <em>Enchanted with Death</em>, a study of former Soviet citizens who had committed suicide in their despair.</p> <figure id="attachment_53056" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53056" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-53056 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-KING-CARL-GUSTAV-NOBEL-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500814622.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-53056 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="2280" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-KING-CARL-GUSTAV-NOBEL-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500814622.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-KING-CARL-GUSTAV-NOBEL-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500814622-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-KING-CARL-GUSTAV-NOBEL-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500814622-380x380.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-KING-CARL-GUSTAV-NOBEL-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500814622-760x760.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-KING-CARL-GUSTAV-NOBEL-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500814622.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53056" class="wp-caption-text">December 10, 2015: His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden presents a diploma and medal to Svetlana Alexievich during the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony at Stockholm Concert Hall. (Jonas Ekstromer/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>One consequence of the end of Soviet power was the independence of Belarus.  Alexander Lukashenko became the first president of the new republic.  Initially seen as a patriotic reformer, Lukashenko soon moved to consolidate his personal power, muzzling his opponents, curbing the press, and suppressing civic institutions.  In over 20 years in office, he has shown no signs of relinquishing power; neighboring countries have condemned his regime as “the last dictatorship in Europe.”</p> <figure id="attachment_53029" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53029" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-53029 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-AWARDS-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500817528.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-53029 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1518" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-AWARDS-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500817528.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-AWARDS-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500817528-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-AWARDS-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500817528-760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-AWARDS-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500817528.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53029" class="wp-caption-text">December 10, 2015: Svetlana Alexievich poses with the Nobel Award during the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony at Stockholm Concert Hall, Stockholm, Sweden. The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Svetlana Alexievich “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.” (Marcus Ericsson/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p><span style="font-size: 1rem;">The relentlessly honest portrayal of Soviet and post-Soviet history in Alexievich’s work is at odds with the idealized version preferred by President Lukashenko and his supporters.  In Russia, as well as Belarus, Alexievich’s critics denounced her work as a </span>libel<span style="font-size: 1rem;"> on the Soviet people.  Since 1993, the state-controlled publishing houses of Belarus have refused to publish Alexievich’s books.</span></p> <figure id="attachment_53028" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53028" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-53028 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-15-2015-PRESS-CONFERENCE-GettyImages-501438138.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-53028 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1524" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-15-2015-PRESS-CONFERENCE-GettyImages-501438138.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-15-2015-PRESS-CONFERENCE-GettyImages-501438138-380x254.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-15-2015-PRESS-CONFERENCE-GettyImages-501438138-760x508.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-15-2015-PRESS-CONFERENCE-GettyImages-501438138.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53028" class="wp-caption-text">December 15, 2015: Belarusian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Svetlana Alexievich (center right) speaks to the media after traveling from Stockholm to the airport in Minsk. (Photo credit: Sergei Gapon/AFP/Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>The 1986 failure of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine created an environmental disaster in both Ukraine and Belarus.  The health effects of radiation exposure in the region are an object of controversy in the affected countries, but cancer rates among adults and children have spiked dramatically in Belarus, and thousands of deaths in both countries have been attributed to the aftereffects of the disaster.  A decade later, memories of the disaster had faded in much of the world.  In her 1997 book, <em>Voices from Chernobyl</em> (published in the UK as <em>Chernobyl Prayer</em>), Alexievich allowed the survivors of the disaster to speak for themselves before their voices were silenced forever.</p> <figure id="attachment_53018" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53018" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-53018 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2016-30thanniversary-of-Chernobyl-CHERNOBYLS-PRAYER-GettyImages-519599790.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-53018 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1822" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2016-30thanniversary-of-Chernobyl-CHERNOBYLS-PRAYER-GettyImages-519599790.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2016-30thanniversary-of-Chernobyl-CHERNOBYLS-PRAYER-GettyImages-519599790-380x304.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2016-30thanniversary-of-Chernobyl-CHERNOBYLS-PRAYER-GettyImages-519599790-760x607.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2016-30thanniversary-of-Chernobyl-CHERNOBYLS-PRAYER-GettyImages-519599790.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53018" class="wp-caption-text">April 7, 2016: Svetlana Alexievich speaks during a press conference for the presentation of her book <em>Chernobyl Prayer (Voices from Chernobyl)</em> in Kiev. Alexievich published her book in Ukraine ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe. On April 25-26, 1986, a series of explosions shook Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Flames lit up the sky and radiation escaped to contaminate the land and poison the people for years to come. While officials tried to hush up the accident, Alexievich spent years collecting testimonies from survivors — clean-up workers, residents, firefighters, resettlers, widows, orphans — crafting their voices into a haunting oral history of fear, anger, and uncertainty, but also dark humor and love. (Sergei Supinsky/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>A private publisher was willing to bring out <em>Voices of Chernobyl</em> in Belarus, but in the first decade of her country’s independence, Alexievich’s position became increasingly precarious.  Alexievich registered her objection to the Lukashenko regime by leaving the country and going into voluntary exile.  She expected to return in a short period of time, but as it happened, she spent much of the next ten years in Paris, Berlin, and in Gothenburg, Sweden.  She spent her years abroad painstakingly editing the interviews she had collected with ordinary Russians and others since the fall of the Soviet Union.  In 2011, after nearly ten years abroad, with work on her latest book nearing completion, she made the difficult decision to return to her home in Belarus.  Years in the making, the resulting book would be hailed as her magnum opus when it was published in 2014.</p> <figure id="attachment_53012" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53012" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-53012 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_0659.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-53012 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1824" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_0659.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_0659-380x304.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_0659-760x608.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_0659.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53012" class="wp-caption-text">Awards Council member and former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak presents the Golden Plate Award to Nobel Prize recipient Svetlana Alexievich at a ceremony during the 2017 International Achievement Summit in London.</figcaption></figure> <p><em>Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets</em> is a sweeping account of the tortured life and slow death of the Soviet dream.  Alexievich acknowledges the idealism of the founding generation of the Soviet state and the courage of the generations who struggled to build a better society from the wreckage of Imperial Russia while defending their country — at enormous cost — from invasion by Hitler’s Germany.  In the end, she concludes, the revolution only succeeded in replacing one tyranny with another.  Alexievich’s views of the post-Soviet era are not brighter.  Centuries of despotism left the Russian people unprepared for self-government, she believes, and susceptible to nostalgia for the old dictatorship and the temptations of corrupt, authoritarian rule.</p> <p><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-53014 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-june-25-GettyImages-984151160.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-53014 lazyload" alt="" width="2218" height="3000" data-sizes="(max-width: 2218px) 100vw, 2218px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-june-25-GettyImages-984151160.jpg 2218w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-june-25-GettyImages-984151160-281x380.jpg 281w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-june-25-GettyImages-984151160-562x760.jpg 562w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-june-25-GettyImages-984151160.jpg"></p> <p>June 25, 2018: Belarusian writer, journalist, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Svetlana Alexievich holds her portrait during the presentation of a series of books called The Voices of Utopia, in Minsk. (Sergei Gapon/Getty)<em>Secondhand Time</em> created a sensation in the West, controversy in Russia, and was issued by a private publisher in Belarus, despite the official boycott of Alexievich’s work.  The Swedish Academy awarded Alexievich the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”</p> <figure id="attachment_62756" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-62756" style="width: 1684px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-62756 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Last-Witnesses.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-62756 lazyload" alt="" width="1684" height="2560" data-sizes="(max-width: 1684px) 100vw, 1684px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Last-Witnesses.jpg 1684w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Last-Witnesses-250x380.jpg 250w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Last-Witnesses-500x760.jpg 500w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Last-Witnesses.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-62756" class="wp-caption-text">2019: <em>Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II</em> by Svetlana Alexievich. Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style, <em>Last Witnesses</em> is Svetlana Alexievich’s collection of the memories of those who were children during World War II. They had sometimes been soldiers as well as witnesses, and their generation grew up with the trauma of the war deeply embedded—a trauma that changed the course of the Russian nation.</figcaption></figure> <p>Today, Svetlana Alexievich continues to live in Minsk, although the government prohibits her from speaking in schools or appearing on television or radio. In 2019 she published <em>Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II</em>.</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2017 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.author">Author</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.writer">Writer</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> May 31, 1948 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <div class="page" title="Page 25"> <div class="layoutArea"> <div class="column"> <p>Svetlana Alexievich has created a new literary form to tell the story of modern Russia, not through the acts of parliaments and presidents, but with the voices of ordinary men and women, swept along by the currents of history. In her “novels of voices” she orchestrates hundreds of interviews into a symphonic panorama of history.</p> <p>Her magnum opus, <em>Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets</em>, examines the collapse of the Soviet Union and its aftermath, when hundreds of millions of men and women saw everything they had believed in swept away virtually overnight. In their struggle to adapt to a new way of life, Alexievich hears a people trapped between the failed dream of a socialist utopia and the “spiritual wasteland” of a society based solely on the pursuit of material gain.</p> <p>In awarding Alexievich the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy praised her work as “a monument to suffering and courage in our time.” While her books focus with unflinching honesty on the people of her homeland, they speak in loud, clear voices to all of us.</p> </div> </div> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/63X3wlRPiWM?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_38_35_25.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_38_35_25.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">The Novel of Voices</h2> <div class="sans-2">London, England</div> <div class="sans-2">October 18, 2017</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Most of the authors who have received the Nobel Prize are novelists, poets, or playwrights. Your work is completely different. You interview real people and let them speak for themselves. How did you come to be so interested in these people and their stories?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/toqzVTsY7yI?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.01_28_56_07.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.01_28_56_07.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: A lot changed during the last 20, 30 years — music, art. Why shouldn’t literature change as well? We cannot have the same literature as Tolstoy wrote. My parents were teachers in a village, and I spent my whole childhood in a village. And what I heard from simple women on the street, their stories were more amazing than any books I read. Their stories were horrifying, interesting, and very different. It made a big impression on me and had a great influence on what I wrote because some things were so much stronger and heavier than anything I read before. I feel very sad that many conversations between people on the street, between parents and children, they are disappearing. But I feel it’s also part of literature.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p><strong>Were you the sort of child who stood listening in the kitchen while the grown-ups talked after dinner?</strong></p> <p>Svetlana Alexievich:  I couldn’t say that I heard all the stories in the kitchen, but I heard a lot of stories on the street. I spent a lot of time on the street and outside. And usually, after work, women would come and spend some time together, sitting on the bench, telling stories. Some stories were about the war, and some stories were about love, and it was very interesting to me.</p> <figure id="attachment_53179" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53179" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-53179 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_758073769755.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-53179 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="2280" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_758073769755.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_758073769755-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_758073769755-380x380.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_758073769755-760x760.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_758073769755.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53179" class="wp-caption-text">June 19, 2012: Svetlana Alexievich in her home city of Minsk, Belarus. She spent 12 years in exile in various western European cities – Paris, Berlin, Gothenburg – before returning in 2011 to live in Belarus. (Photo: Writer Pictures/AP)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>Do you remember any particular story that stuck with you that you could give us as an example?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/fvW_8AvjlNU?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_28_14_08.Still009-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_28_14_08.Still009-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: In Russia, there is a day of memory of the dead, where everybody gathers together at the cemetery to remember those who died before. I remember seeing this particular woman always sitting alone at the cemetery, and I was wondering why. Why is she always alone? I found out that during the war, when people were hiding from the Germans, she had a baby who was always crying because the baby was hungry. And people were scared that they will be found out because that baby was crying so much. So they told her to drown the baby and she did. But because the baby died, they actually judged her for that, and they isolated her and didn’t want anything to do with her.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p>There’s another story I’d like to tell you that’s from the time when I was in Belarus. Usually, in the summer, we would go visit my grandma in Ukraine. I would go to the fields to help her there, and she would usually tell me, “Please don’t go through the forest,” and I was wondering why. Well, during the war, a lot of people died there — Russians and Germans. After the war, the bodies of the Russian people were collected and buried elsewhere, but the bodies of German people were left there, and they were not touched. And even now, you can see in that field, and in that part of the forest, the bodies there. You can find bones, and it’s horrifying.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/3v8_MCx3jRY?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_22_15_22.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_22_15_22.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I heard about horrors from childhood. You probably know about the big famine in the Ukraine, a famine that Stalin started because the Ukrainian nation didn’t obey him. And I remember there was a certain house on the field, and every time we passed that house, my grandma would tell me, “Shh. Quiet, quiet.” And I was wondering why she is telling us to be quiet.</p> <p>Later, when I grew up, she told me the story. During the famine, people were eating everything. They were eating dung and waste from people and from animals. And this one woman who lived in the house, she ate her two children, and she was separated by the village — she lived alone. And I remember how scared I was to walk past that house. And this story of our nation, it has had a great influence on me, and I wanted to tell those stories.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_53187" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53187" style="width: 2088px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-53187 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-491797948.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-53187 lazyload" alt="" width="2088" height="3136" data-sizes="(max-width: 2088px) 100vw, 2088px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-491797948.jpg 2088w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-491797948-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-491797948-506x760.jpg 506w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-491797948.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53187" class="wp-caption-text">A copy in French of the book <em>War’s Unwomanly Face</em> by Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich on display at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, where the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature was announced on October 8, 2015. Starting out as a journalist, Alexievich developed her own nonfiction genre, gathering a chorus of voices to describe a specific historical moment. Her books have been translated into over 45 languages. (© Getty)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Your books are composed of interviews, but your selection and arrangement of the words of others are an art form as well. Why did you adopt this method, rather than writing a conventional narrative or history?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/smNjx8mYxmM?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_10_38_01.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_10_38_01.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: If I tried to describe the stories that I heard, in my own words — there are thousands of stories. One of the books, it took me 40 years. And if I tried to describe it in my own words, it wouldn’t be the same. If I described it in my own words, then there would be no power or diversity that was described in interviews. And life is art. That’s what makes it different.</p> <p>It takes me a long time to write every book, about seven to ten years. For every book, I interview about 700 people, and I write thousands of pages, and sometimes an interview with one person can take a few days. So I need to create a picture. You can say it’s like music, a symphony — out of the chaos of different stories — and that is an art in itself. You can say that every story is like a brick, and you can say that they’re not really so unusual on their own. But when you put it all together, you build an amazing building.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/yzbCEJ-47iM?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_38_07_13.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_38_07_13.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Now is an interesting time when, actually, fiction disappoints people because fiction used to be used for propaganda, so people are looking for something new. And that’s why I think that the only hero — the only character that people will believe — is the actual witness. I’m not choosing some special people. I’m just choosing ordinary people because that’s important.</p> <p>These people didn’t mean much to the system, and their life — their stories — would otherwise disappear. Nobody asked them any questions about their life. Those people were just used by the system, including socialism. But I wanted to record it. I asked those questions. In a way, it’s a double trust when you interview common people. Educated people can be influenced by the propaganda, but common people look at life simply, and they tell the truth — the story as it is. People are connected with time — through radio and TV — and it’s important to give them the freedom to look at things differently.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_53192" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53192" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-53192 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-October-8-2015-MINSK-PRESS-CONF-GettyImages-491809298.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-53192 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1501" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-October-8-2015-MINSK-PRESS-CONF-GettyImages-491809298.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-October-8-2015-MINSK-PRESS-CONF-GettyImages-491809298-380x250.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-October-8-2015-MINSK-PRESS-CONF-GettyImages-491809298-760x500.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-October-8-2015-MINSK-PRESS-CONF-GettyImages-491809298.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53192" class="wp-caption-text">October 8, 2015: Belarusian writer and journalist Svetlana Alexievich at a press conference in Minsk following the announcement that she had won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature. (Photo: Sergei Gapon/AFP/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>The way you combine your interviews, you break them up into very small pieces and arrange them throughout the book in a complex pattern. Sometimes you use your subject’s real names and sometimes you don’t. Is there a reason for that?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/SijlPzRY5Zw?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_25_06_25.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_25_06_25.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: I have a different style of documentary. Before, people thought that you cannot really include something intimate or something that is particular to that person. I include everything. I don’t edit what they say. Sometimes people did ask me if they could stay anonymous because they were afraid of the KGB or neighbors that could spy on them or tell on them. They wanted to feel secure and protected. And yes, they would ask me not to say their name.</p> <p>In one of the stories about Chernobyl, one of the women told a story about her husband. He was dying from cancer. It’s a horrible story. Her husband was at the end of his life, and doctors had no hope for him. There was no pain relief, and he was sent home, and he would scream all day long. The only way his wife could handle it was to give him two liters of vodka a day, or she had to do even more terrible things. They really loved each other, but it was very difficult to live with him. He was a fireman, but he became a monster — the way he was behaving — and he looked very horrible. Even doctors didn’t like visiting him because of that.</p> <p>One of the things that they were doing — he would clap his hands, and that was his sign, asking her to come to his bed to make love to him. And during that time, he would not scream. But she asked me not to tell that in the stories, because she didn’t want others to think that she is a perverted person. In the first edition, I actually changed her name. But when she read the book, she asked me why. And I told her, “Valentina, you asked me to change your name.” And she said, “No, I suffered. My husband suffered. I don’t want to disappear. I want people to know.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/XQH54_bNq7c?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_22_12_10.Still006-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_22_12_10.Still006-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>There is a different story. It’s called <em>Zinky Boys</em>, about the war in Afghanistan. And one of the officers who was there was telling stories about tortures that they did to people there. For example, they were cutting people’s ears to take home as a souvenir, or how they raped women there. And I wrote everything, everything he told me. But later, when he was in Moscow, he gave me a call, and he said, “Why did you write that? Now I have problems with the KGB. Now my father, who is in the military, doesn’t want to know me.” So I discovered a new way to deal with it. I created a different chapter, with all the names who took part in the interviews, so that you couldn’t tell who told what story.</p> <p>It’s life. It’s unpredictable, and I have to be flexible and see how it goes in every situation. I spoke to my colleague, Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote different stories about different people, real people. And she said, “Well, I spoke to this person, but later I found out he was killed. I spoke to that person, and he was killed as well.” We talked about how it’s important that we protect the people that we talk to— that it’s our responsibility.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_53184" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53184" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-53184 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-DINNER-GettyImages-500825182-1.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-53184 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1518" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-DINNER-GettyImages-500825182-1.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-DINNER-GettyImages-500825182-1-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051928im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-DINNER-GettyImages-500825182-1-760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-DINNER-GettyImages-500825182-1.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-53184" class="wp-caption-text">December 10, 2015: (left to right) Former Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation, Michael Sohlman; recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Svetlana Alexievich; and the Marshal of the Realm of Sweden and Chief of the Royal Court of Sweden, Professor Svante Lindqvist, attend the Nobel Prize Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm.</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>In your Nobel lecture, you referred to your work as “the history of the soul.” In your book <em>Secondhand</em> <em>Time</em>, it’s the soul of Russians and the citizens of the other Soviet republics in the post-Soviet era. From the revolution to the present, it’s a story of hopes raised and then dashed over and over again for almost a century. After all your work, how do you see the Soviet era and its aftermath?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/SyeUs0mqksM?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_19_42_24.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.00_19_42_24.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: I think that the idea of socialism is actually a good idea. But what the Bolsheviks did to the country, it’s a crime. When I was writing this book, I was actually studying a lot of memories of Bolsheviks; there are letters and other documents. And it’s interesting to see, in their youth, they were actually beautiful people, and they wanted to create a paradise. I think it’s an eternal Russian problem, the idealism. People were not ready for socialism yet, but they were forced into it. And Stalin actually was saying — one of his sayings was, in the camps where people were tortured — that “We need to force freedom on people.”</p> <p>Of course, my generation was different, and I didn’t witness camps. My father told me about those days. He worked in the university, and he said many of the teachers from the universities were in camps. My generation didn’t see so much blood. People weren’t sent to their death. It’s a different time. I wrote, in parts of my book, about the notes of accomplices. I believe that we all were part of it because we believed in the same thing. We believed in the socialist idea; we believed in freedom; we believed in the better world. I remember, when I was young, we even were talking about going to other parts of Russia to develop it, to make it better. We were all idealists.</p> <p>I would say my family was a common (typical) family. My father was director of a school. He was a member of the Communist Party. He went to war. That was his generation and his idea. And it’s difficult for that generation to say goodbye to all of those ideas. For example, when I was writing my book about Afghanistan, I told my father all of those stories, horror stories, about what was happening. I told him, “Those people, they are actually torturing people in Afghanistan.” When I told my father, he did not believe me, and he was crying.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>When the period of <em>glasnost</em> — or openness — began, what did people believe that freedom would look like? And when communism ended, what did it actually look like?</strong></p> <p>I never was a member of the Communist Party, but still, it was difficult to build capitalism, to start from scratch, because it was something different, something new.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051928if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/8mbhkBduJwg?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.01_24_35_06.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/MasterEdit.01_24_35_06.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: In the ‘90s, we were all naïve. We just thought that we will finish the communism, and we will get freedom, and we will get a beautiful life. One thing we didn’t realize is that if somebody spent their whole life in prison, even if you let them out, it doesn’t mean that they will be free inside. There actually was no freedom; there was only talk of freedom. People who were in the Communist Party, they didn’t get their judgment; they were still in power. They not only had power but now they bought a lot of things. So they were very rich. So it is basically double power.</p> <p>In those days, people were very confused because nobody from the top was explaining to them what was happening. I think Putin actually learned that lesson, and now there are a lot of explanations on TV and on radio, but in those days, people didn’t have a clue.</p> <p>In many places, the Soviet generation is called <em>sovok</em>, but I think it’s very demeaning. I don’t like that word. I cannot call my father or his friends such a word because it was an amazing generation. They experienced a lot. They fought in the war, and that is not the word to describe them. That’s why I describe the history of the soul because it’s important to describe the world of feelings — what people experience inside.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What’s the significance of that word </strong><em><strong>sovok</strong></em><strong> you mentioned? </strong></p> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: I see the word <em>sovok</em> as a label, a label that was put on problems that Russia experienced in those days because, actually, they didn’t understand the root of the problem. It’s easy to say such a word, <em>sovok</em>. But why say that? It’s just an easy way to describe something without getting into it, without understanding what’s behind it — why Russia is experiencing, again and again, such problems; why there is a problem of militarism that there is now in Russia.</p> <p>It’s important to understand that in the 20th century, socialism was popular in Europe as well — in France, in Germany — but it didn’t win in those countries. Why? Because they had a different culture; they supported individuality; they had respect for private property. In Russia, they were idealistic, and they wanted to do everything straightaway without the proper background.</p> <p>I tell the stories of my characters in the book <em>Secondhand Time</em><em>.</em> They tell their life stories. And you cannot call them <em>sovok</em> because it’s very demeaning. They were searching for a way of life. They were confused, they were sad, and they had no freedom. I like how one of the French reviews described my book. They said, “How beautiful and how scary is the Russian life!”</p> <p>People wanted to have freedom, but they actually didn’t know what freedom is, and from the 1920s, millions of people died. That’s why I wanted to describe the soul of such a person. Not just put the label on them and say, “Well, this is who they are,” but actually describe what they went through and what they felt.</p> <p>When I traveled around Russia, during the times when Yeltsin was in power, I could see there was a lot of hope for democracy. But when I talked to people, I realized there is no democracy because there is no foundation for that. And I realized it probably will be even worse later on than it was during Soviet time.</p> <p>It’s hard to imagine that people who knew each other — who were brothers, you can say — that they would kill each other. Like my father, he is from Belarus; my mother is from the Ukraine. It’s hard to imagine that those nations are in conflict between themselves.</p> <p><strong>We wanted to ask you about Gorbachev — Mikhail Gorbachev — who became head of the Communist Party in 1985 and began the process of reform. In the United States and some other parts of the world, he is still viewed as a sort of heroic figure who began the process of reforming the Soviet Union. </strong> <strong>But we understand that in the former Soviet Union, he is not remembered so fondly. Can you tell us about that discrepancy? </strong></p> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: I think what happened just shows that <em>perestroika</em> — and you can say the revolution of that time was not initiated by the people; it was initiated by Gorbachev and <em>his</em> people.</p> <p>It’s important when we talk about that time — when the whole country fell apart — it’s important to understand that actually, the Russian people want to have an empire. I’ve read in newspapers that the West calls Putin a dictator, but you need to understand that Russians are actually part of Putin. They want to have an empire. It’s part of them. That’s what they want.</p> <p>When I spoke to some people who actually earned money honestly, they told me that others who don’t have so much money hate them. They hate that those rich people have a better life. I think it’s because psychologically they are actually not ready for a better life.</p> <p>One of the Russian writers who was writing about the camps — his name is (Varlam) Shalamov — he said that the camps actually destroy the butcher and the victim. I think it’s because there is no foundation for democracy. We’re not ready for democracy. To reach democracy, you need a long, long time.</p> <p>It was very difficult to write any of my books because it’s difficult to describe the vast problems in different parts of the country — in Siberia or in the Baltic countries. The problems are very diverse. And Russia itself doesn’t know what is going to happen in the future. We don’t know what’s going to happen in Russia because right now there are new nationalists, new patriots, who actually think that Putin is weak despite Crimea and other things that happened. They want to achieve more. Can you imagine? It’s even scarier.</p> <p>Many people believe that the Soviet era was a great era — that we won in World War II — and the new view is not welcome. And many people say, “Don’t read books of Alexievich because she is telling a lie.” And it’s not just my books. The books of other authors — like (Anna) Politkovskaya and (Boris) Akunin — they are not recognized there either, and people think that they are lies as well. This is the real Russia — the real Russia today. What we dreamed of in the ‘90s, that was only a dream that didn’t really happen. What we have today is what we have today.</p> <p>So my goal was to describe the Soviet era, to describe the “Red Utopia,” how it influenced people and how long it takes for communism to actually disappear. The situation in Ukraine right now shows exactly that that’s the consequences of communism. We still see the blood of communism.</p> <p><strong>So on one hand, people refer to the old Soviet generation with this derogatory term, </strong><em><strong>sovok</strong></em><strong>. But on the other hand, some people have nostalgia for the Soviet era and want the return of some idealized version of it. Is that right, that both of those things exist?</strong></p> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: I think it’s happening because of helplessness. People didn’t want it to happen. In the ‘90s, when I went on the streets, they weren’t asking for money to go to Putin and oil to (Roman) Abramovich. They wanted to have freedom, and they didn’t get it. That’s why they think that during Brezhnev’s time, it was a good time because there were no rich or poor people. But actually, it’s because they didn’t know what was happening in those days. And right now, Putin is in charge of propaganda. He is trying to glorify those days. He’s the one who’s saying that Gorbachev is evil.</p> <p><strong>You recently returned to Belarus after living in exile for a decade. Can you tell us what led to your decision to go into exile and then to return?</strong></p> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: I went into exile because of Lukashenko. He came to power, and he was a dictator. It was a form of protest on my side. Also, many writers were writing about bloody events in the country with glee. I didn’t want to be one of those writers. I didn’t want to participate in that or describe that. Honestly, I think you need to know the butcher and you need to know the victim. When you’re on a barricade, you only see a target; you don’t see a human person.</p> <p><strong>Can you explain that last phrase: “When you’re on the barricade” — what does that mean?</strong></p> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: Basically, you see the target that you aim at. You don’t see a human behind it. After I wrote the book <em>Zinky Boys</em>, I was actually threatened to be sued for that — that I wrote lies against the Soviet period, against the USSR, and the KGB was threatening me as well. So I went abroad. I wasn’t planning to live there for a long time, but I ended up being there for ten years. I came back because you have to live among the people to understand them. You have to speak the same language with them to really absorb the atmosphere.</p> <p><strong>Do you think winning the Nobel Prize gives you some protection from the regime? </strong></p> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: I guess in some way there is protection, but I don’t know if our dictators understand that kind of protection. Lukashenko is acting very aggressive towards me. I’m not allowed to speak in schools, on radio or TV, and my books are not allowed in schools. But I found out that the people actually know about me, and they support me; they stand behind me. If I am somewhere in public, they recognize me, and they say good words. I am of the opinion that it’s not necessary to make a victim of yourself, but just to continue living and continue writing.</p> <p><strong>Is there something that makes people willing to tell you stories they might not tell other people? Something about the way you listen?</strong></p> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: I wouldn’t say it’s a special skill. I’m just trying to be friendly with people. In my family, there are a lot of teachers, from my great-grandfather to my father. We lived in a village where people talked to each other and knew each other. People interest me. I love people. I love talking to them.</p> <p>It’s not like I meet someone and I sit them down for the interview. We talk about life. It’s a conversation, and it’s a long conversation. Only a little part of it goes into the book. For example — the subject of war — I talked to this woman who went to war. She was very naïve. She went to war with a suitcase full of sweets. But we didn’t only talk about that — we talked about her marriage, about her children. I think it’s important to understand a person from every angle, to describe everything about that person.</p> <p>The Russian poet (Joseph) Brodsky said, “How do you know the difference between good literature and bad literature?” And he said, “The secret is metaphysics. If you just collect information, it’s journalism, but if you describe the person, if you find out the inner side of a person, that’s literature. “ Exactly. I don’t want to just know the superficial information. I want to know that person, in general. What do they think about love? What do they think about death? I want to put it all together.</p> <p><strong>Your first book, </strong><em><strong>The Unwomanly</strong></em> <em><strong>Face of War</strong></em><strong>, tells the story of Soviet women who fought in World War II. What made you want to focus on women? Was their story unknown in the Soviet Union? </strong></p> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: My first book — and the way it was a form of protest because the stories I heard before were the hero stories. And I wanted people to hear a different side of war because men usually tell those hero stories, and we didn’t know much about the real side of the war.</p> <p><strong>What’s the next story that you hope to tell through your interviews?</strong></p> <p>Svetlana Alexievich: I think that I finished the cycle of a hundred years of history of the Soviet period. I described it well. Now I would like to concentrate on the life of a person without any great idea behind it. So there are only two topics that describe a person: it’s love and death. And the books will be probably about men and women, their perception of love. The other topic I’m interested in is aging because now people live longer — 20, 30 years longer. But in my country, there is no philosophy behind it. How do you age gracefully? What do people do in old age? Usually, they take care of their children; they fulfill their biological program, and then what? What do they do? So I’m very interested to hear about that. What do they have to say about that?</p> <p><strong>Thank you so much. It’s been a great honor to talk to you.</strong></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Svetlana Alexievich Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>18 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65789473684211" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-October-8-2015-MINSK-PRESS-CONF-GettyImages-491809298.jpg" data-image-caption="October 8, 2015: Belarusian writer and journalist Svetlana Alexievich arrives for a press conference in Minsk following the announcement she had won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature. (Photo Credit: Sergei Gapon/AFP/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="BELARUS-NOBEL-LITERATURE-ALEXIEVICH" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-October-8-2015-MINSK-PRESS-CONF-GettyImages-491809298-380x250.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-October-8-2015-MINSK-PRESS-CONF-GettyImages-491809298-760x500.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.8" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_0659.jpg" data-image-caption="Awards Council member and former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak presents the Golden Plate Award to Nobel Prize recipient Svetlana Alexievich at a ceremony during the 2017 International Achievement Summit in London. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-LondonSummit_0659" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_0659-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_0659-760x608.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.501976284585" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-491797948.jpg" data-image-caption="A copy in French of the book <i>War’s Unwomanly Face</i> by Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich on display at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, where the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature was announced on October 8, 2015. Starting out as a journalist, Alexievich developed her own nonfiction genre, which gathers a chorus of voices to describe a specific historical moment. Her works include <i>War’s Unwomanly Face</i> (1985), <i>Last Witnesses</i> (1985), <i>Zinky Boys</i> (1990), <i>Voices from Chernobyl</i> (1997), and <i>Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets</i> (2013). (Jonathan Nackstrand/Getty)" data-image-copyright="NOBEL-LITERATURE-BELARUS" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-491797948-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-491797948-506x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-DINNER-GettyImages-500825182-1.jpg" data-image-caption="December 10, 2015: (left to right) Former Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation, Michael Sohlman; recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Svetlana Alexievich; and the Marshal of the Realm of Sweden and Chief of the Royal Court of Sweden, Professor Svante Lindqvist, attend the Nobel Prize Banquet at City Hall in Stockholm. (Getty)" data-image-copyright="Nobel Prize Banquet 2015, Stockholm" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-DINNER-GettyImages-500825182-1-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-DINNER-GettyImages-500825182-1-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5049504950495" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/January-2005-paris-GettyImages-56513690.jpg" data-image-caption="January 18, 2005: Svetlana Alexievich in Paris, France. Alexievich was born on May 31, 1948, in the Ukrainian town of Ivano-Frankivsk. Her father was Belarusian and her mother Ukrainian. Svetlana Alexievich was raised in her father’s hometown of Belarus and studied to be a journalist at the University of Minsk. (Ulf Andersen/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Ulf Andersen Archive - Svetlana Alekseievitch" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/January-2005-paris-GettyImages-56513690-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/January-2005-paris-GettyImages-56513690-505x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_758073769755.jpg" data-image-caption="June 19, 2012: Svetlana Alexievich in her home city of Minsk, Belarus. She spent 12 years in exile in various western European cities — Paris, Berlin, Gothenburg — before returning in 2011 to live in Belarus. (Writer Pictures/AP Images)" data-image-copyright="Svetlana Alexievich" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_758073769755-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_758073769755-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4814814814815" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1990-wp-zinky-boys-the-boys-in-zink-1.jpg" data-image-caption="1990: <i>The Boys in Zinc</i> (<i>Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War</i>) by Svetlana Alexievich is a book about the criminal Soviet-Afghan War, which had been concealed from the Soviet people for ten years. Alexievich traveled around the country for four years to meet war victims’ mothers and veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War. She also visited the war zone in Afghanistan. Creating controversy and outrage when it was first published in the USSR — the book was called by military and Communist papers a "slanderous piece of fantasy” and part of a “hysterical chorus of malign attacks” — <i>The Boys in Zinc</i> presents the candid and affecting testimony of the officers and grunts, nurses and prostitutes, mothers, sons, and daughters who describe the war and its lasting effects. (© Penguin Random)" data-image-copyright="1990-wp-zinky boys - the boys in zink" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1990-wp-zinky-boys-the-boys-in-zink-1-257x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1990-wp-zinky-boys-the-boys-in-zink-1-513x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-KING-CARL-GUSTAV-NOBEL-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500814622.jpg" data-image-caption="December 10, 2015: His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden presents a diploma and medal to Svetlana Alexievich during the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony at Stockholm Concert Hall. (Jonas Ekstromer/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="SWEDEN-NOBEL-PRIZE" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-KING-CARL-GUSTAV-NOBEL-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500814622-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-KING-CARL-GUSTAV-NOBEL-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500814622-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4366729678639" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1997-wp-voices-from-chernobyl-1.jpg" data-image-caption="1997: <i>Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster</i> by Svetlana Alexievich. On April 25-26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, and contaminated as much as three-quarters of Europe. <i>Voices from Chernobyl</i> is the first book to present personal accounts of the tragedy. Journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown — from innocent citizens to firefighters to those called in to clean up the disaster — revealing the great fear, anger, and uncertainty with which they still live." data-image-copyright="1997-wp-voices from chernobyl" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1997-wp-voices-from-chernobyl-1-264x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1997-wp-voices-from-chernobyl-1-529x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.73026315789474" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-June-19-2012-AP_874456463727.jpg" data-image-caption="June 19, 2012: Svetlana Alexievich, photographed in Minsk, Belarus, where she currently resides. In Minsk, she has worked at the newspaper <i>Sel’skaja Gazeta</i>. Her criticism of the political regimes in the Soviet Union and Belarus has periodically forced her to live abroad; for example, in Italy, France, Germany, and Sweden. (Writer Pictures/AP)" data-image-copyright="2-panel---June-19-2012---AP_874456463727" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-June-19-2012-AP_874456463727-380x278.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-June-19-2012-AP_874456463727-760x555.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2013-wp-secondhand-time.jpg" data-image-caption="2013:<i> Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets</i> by Svetlana Alexievich. In <i>Secondhand Time</i>, Alexievich chronicles the demise of communism. Everyday Russian citizens recount the past 30 years, documenting what life was like during the fall of the Soviet Union and what it’s like to live in the new Russia left in its wake. Through interviews spanning 1991 to 2012, Alexievich takes us behind the propaganda and contrived media accounts, giving us a panoramic portrait of contemporary Russia — and the Russians who still carry memories of oppression, terror, famine, and massacres, as well as pride in their country, hope for the future, and the belief that everyone was working and fighting together to bring about a utopia. Here is an account of life in the aftermath of an idea so powerful, it once dominated a third of the world — a stunning tapestry of the sorrows and triumphs of the human spirit. (Penguin)" data-image-copyright="2013-wp-secondhand time" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2013-wp-secondhand-time-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2013-wp-secondhand-time-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-AWARDS-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500817528.jpg" data-image-caption="December 10, 2015: Svetlana Alexievich poses with the Nobel Award during the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony at Stockholm Concert Hall, Stockholm, Sweden. The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Svetlana Alexievich “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.” (Marcus Ericsson/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="SWEDEN-NOBEL-PRIZE" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-AWARDS-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500817528-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-10-2015-NOBEL-AWARDS-CEREMONY-GettyImages-500817528-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66842105263158" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-15-2015-PRESS-CONFERENCE-GettyImages-501438138.jpg" data-image-caption="December 15, 2015: Belarusian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Svetlana Alexievich (center right) speaks to the media after traveling from Stockholm to the airport in Minsk. (Photo credit: Sergei Gapon/AFP/Getty)" data-image-copyright="BELARUS-NOBEL-LITERATURE-ALEXIEVICH" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-15-2015-PRESS-CONFERENCE-GettyImages-501438138-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/December-15-2015-PRESS-CONFERENCE-GettyImages-501438138-760x508.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.74605263157895" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-Wars-Unwomanly-Face-in-swedish-GettyImages-491797952.jpg" data-image-caption="<i>The Unwomanly Face of War</i> (Swedish copy) and <i>The Last Witnesses: the Book of Unchildlike Stories</i> (German copy) by Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich, published in 1985. In 1983, Alexievich completed <i>The Unwomanly Face of War</i>. For two years, it sat at a publishing house without being published. Alexievich was accused of pacifism, naturalism, and de-glorification of the heroic Soviet woman. On order of the Belarusian Central Committee of the Communist Party, the completed book was destroyed and Alexievich was accused of anti-Communist and anti-government views. But new times came with Mikhail Gorbachev’s ascent to power and the start of <i>perestroika</i>. In 1985, <i>The Unwomanly Face of War</i> came out simultaneously in Minsk and in Moscow. In the same year, <i>The Last Witnesses: 100 Unchildlike Stories</i> was published. Critics called both books “a discovery in the genre of war prose,” the war seen through women’s and children’s eyes. (Photo credit: JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP and Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="DV2149942" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-Wars-Unwomanly-Face-in-swedish-GettyImages-491797952-380x284.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-panel-Wars-Unwomanly-Face-in-swedish-GettyImages-491797952-760x567.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.79868421052632" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2016-30thanniversary-of-Chernobyl-CHERNOBYLS-PRAYER-GettyImages-519599790.jpg" data-image-caption="April 7, 2016: Svetlana Alexievich speaks during a press conference for the presentation of her book <i>Chernobyl Prayer</i> (<i>Voices From Chernobyl</i>) in Kiev. Alexievich published her book in Ukraine ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe. On April 25-26, 1986, a series of explosions shook Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Flames lit up the sky and radiation escaped to contaminate the land and poison the people for years to come. While officials tried to hush up the accident, Alexievich spent years collecting testimonies from survivors — clean-up workers, residents, firefighters, resettlers, widows, and orphans — crafting their voices into a haunting oral history of fear, anger, and uncertainty, but also dark humor and love. (Sergei Supinsky/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="UKRAINE-CHERNOBYL-ANNIVERSARY-ALEXIEVICH-BOOK" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2016-30thanniversary-of-Chernobyl-CHERNOBYLS-PRAYER-GettyImages-519599790-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2016-30thanniversary-of-Chernobyl-CHERNOBYLS-PRAYER-GettyImages-519599790-760x607.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3523131672598" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-june-25-GettyImages-984151160.jpg" data-image-caption="June 25, 2018: Belarusian writer, journalist, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Svetlana Alexievich holds her portrait during the presentation of a series of books called <i>The Voices of Utopia</i> in Minsk. (Photo by Sergei Gapon and Getty)" data-image-copyright="BELARUS-LITERATURE-ALEXIEVICH" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-june-25-GettyImages-984151160-281x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-june-25-GettyImages-984151160-562x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/alexievich-new-profile-square.jpg" data-image-caption="Svetlana Alexievich" data-image-copyright="alexievich-new-profile-square" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/alexievich-new-profile-square-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/alexievich-new-profile-square.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.52" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Last-Witnesses.jpg" data-image-caption="2019: Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II by Svetlana Alexievich. Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style, Last Witnesses is Svetlana Alexievich’s collection of the memories of those who were children during World War II. They had sometimes been soldiers as well as witnesses, and their generation grew up with the trauma of the war deeply embedded—a trauma that changed the course of the Russian nation." data-image-copyright="Last-Witnesses" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Last-Witnesses-250x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Last-Witnesses-500x760.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on July 10, 2019</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever the-arts shy-introverted write " data-year-inducted="2006" data-achiever-name="Didion"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/did0-001a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/did0-001a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Joan Didion</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Novelist and Essayist</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">2006</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever public-service experienced-war-firsthand poverty small-town-rural-upbringing ambitious analytical extroverted pursue-public-office " data-year-inducted="2000" data-achiever-name="Gorbachev"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gorbachev-760_ac-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gorbachev-760_ac-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Mikhail S. 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Doudna, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/peter-gabriel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peter Gabriel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/reinhold-messner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reinhold Messner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynn-nottage/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lynn Nottage</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/cal-ripken-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Cal Ripken Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony D. 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Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051928/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. 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