Svetlana Alexievich wins Nobel Literature prize

Belarusian writer and journalist Svetlana Alexievich 
has won the 2015 Nobel Prize for literature.
Announcing the prize in Stockholm, the chair of the Swedish Academy, 
Sara Danius, called her writing "a monument to courage and suffering 
in our time".

The award, presented to a living writer, is worth 8m kronor (£691,000).
Previous winners include literary heavyweights Rudyard Kipling and 
Ernest Hemingway. French historical author Patrick Modiano won in 2014.

Alexievich, 67, is a political writer who has often been critical of her home 
country's government.

It has been half a century since a writer working primarily in non-fiction won 
the Nobel - and Alexievich is the first journalist to win the award.

Her best-known works in English translation include Voices From Chernobyl, 
an oral history of the 1986 nuclear catastrophe; and Boys In Zink, 
a collection of first-hand accounts from the Soviet-Afghan war.

"By means of her extraordinary method - a carefully composed collage 
of human voices - Alexievich deepens our comprehension of an entire era," 
the Swedish Academy said.

Witness accounts

The author was born in 1948 in the Ukrainian town of Ivano-Frankivsk, 

to a Belarusian father and Ukrainian mother.

The family moved to Belarus after her father completed his military service, 
and Alexievich studied journalism at the University of Minsk between 1967 and 1972.

After graduation, she worked as a journalist for several years before publishing 
her first book, War's Unwomanly Face, in 1985.

Based on interviews with hundreds of women who participated in the 
World War Two, it set a template for her future works, constructing narratives 
from witnesses to some the world's most devastating events.

On her personal website, Alexievich explains her pursuit of journalism: 
"I chose a genre where human voices speak for themselves."

She has previously won the Swedish PEN prize for her 
"courage and dignity as a writer".

Ms Danius said the author had spent nearly 40 years studying the people 
of the former Soviet Union, but that her work was not only about history but 
"something eternal, a glimpse of eternity".

Alexievich was the bookmakers' favourite to win the award, 
according to Ladbrokes.
She beat other hot favourites Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami 
and Kenyan novelist Ngugi Wa Thiong'o.
She is the 14th woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in its history.
A total of 112 individuals have won it between 1901 and 2015.
bbc.com