The Unwomanly Face of War (Penguin Classics)

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Review ------ A must read (Margaret Atwood) Magnificent. . . Alexievich doesn't just hear what these women say; she cares about how they speak. . . It's a mark of her exceptional mind that she tries to retain the incomprehensible in any human story (Gaby Wood Daily Telegraph Books of the Year) Brilliant (Kamila Shamsie Guardian Books of the Year) Nothing can quite prepare the reader for the shattering force of The Unwomanly Face of War, Svetlana Alexievich's oral history of Soviet women in the second world war. In the midst of such colossal suffering hundreds of little details stick in the mind (Geoff Dyer Guardian Books of the Year) An astonishing book, harrowing and life-affirming. It deserves the widest possible readership (Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train) Extraordinary. . . it would be hard to find a book that feels more important or original. . . Alexievich's strength - and a mark of her own courage - is that she is forever on the lookout for the seemingly inconsequential, almost trivial human moments. . . Her achievement is as breathtaking as the experiences of these women are awe-inspiring (Viv Groskop Observer) A revelation. . . Alexievich's text gives us precious details of the kind that breathe life into history . . . This is a book about emotions as much as it is about facts. It is not a historical document in the accepted sense. . . and yet ultimately, which historical documents are more important than this? (Lyuba Vinogradova Financial Times) A profoundly humbling, devastating book, it should be compulsory reading for anyone wishing to understand the experience of the war and its haunting legacy in the former Soviet Union (Daniel Literary Review) These stories about the women warriors of Mother Russia are a symphony of feminine suffering and strength. . . Read this book. And then read it again (Gerard DeGroot The Times) Astonishing. . . Her years of meticulous listening, her unobtrusiveness and her ear for the telling detail and the memorable story have made her an exceptional witness to modern times. . . This is oral history at its finest and it is also an essay on the power of memory, on what is remembered and what is forgotten (Caroline Moorehead Guardian) From the Inside Flap -------------------- Svetlana Alexievich was born in Ivano-Frankivsk in 1948 and has spent most of her life in the Soviet Union and present-day Belarus, with prolonged periods of exile in Western Europe. Starting out as a journalist, she developed her own non-fiction genre which brings together a chorus of voices to describe a specific historical moment. She has won many international awards, including the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature for 'her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time'. Alexievich set out to write The Unwomanly Face of War, her first book, when she realized that she grew up surrounded by women who had fought in the Second World War but whose stories were absent from official narratives. She spent years interviewing dozens of Soviet women - captains, sergeants, nurses, snipers, pilots, wives and mothers - who had experienced the war on the front lines, on the home front and in occupied territories, bringing to light their memories. After completing the manuscript in 1983, Alexievich was not allowed to publish it because it went against the official history of the war. With the dawn of Perestroika, the book finally came out in 1985 and it became a huge bestseller in the Soviet Union. Alexievich's other works, all built around interviews conducted over many years, include Last Witnesses (1985), Boys in Zinc (1991), Chernobyl Prayer (1997) and Second-Hand Time (2013).