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beeliebooks's review against another edition
5.0
Cada cosa que leo de Svetlana me deja sin palabras. Me encanta
dtpsweeney's review
4.0
“Flaubert called himself a human pen; I would say that I am a human ear.”
A brief, harrowing Nobel address by Alexievich that feels true to / representative of her broader work. A good chunk of the speech, like the majority of her written works, is simply bare, transfixing, revelatory transcriptions of what average people have told her in interviews. Alexievich describes her work as “documentary literature,” and it — including this speech — is every bit that. Yet where she writes for herself, she also shines: “I collect the everyday life of feelings, thoughts and words. I collect the life of my time,” she writes. “I’m interested in little people.”
Alexievich’s lifelong project of capturing the oral histories of Soviet peoples (“homo sovieticus”) by interviewing countless regular people ignored by history builds an essential and specific historical record, but by form it doubles a global challenge to the conventions of historical writing and understanding. Alexievich is one of my favorite writers, and this brief glimpse into her process gets at the heart of why that is so.
A brief, harrowing Nobel address by Alexievich that feels true to / representative of her broader work. A good chunk of the speech, like the majority of her written works, is simply bare, transfixing, revelatory transcriptions of what average people have told her in interviews. Alexievich describes her work as “documentary literature,” and it — including this speech — is every bit that. Yet where she writes for herself, she also shines: “I collect the everyday life of feelings, thoughts and words. I collect the life of my time,” she writes. “I’m interested in little people.”
Alexievich’s lifelong project of capturing the oral histories of Soviet peoples (“homo sovieticus”) by interviewing countless regular people ignored by history builds an essential and specific historical record, but by form it doubles a global challenge to the conventions of historical writing and understanding. Alexievich is one of my favorite writers, and this brief glimpse into her process gets at the heart of why that is so.
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