2015 Nobel Prize in Literature

{{main article|Svetlana Alexievich}}

Alexievich depicts life during and after the Soviet Union through the experience of individuals. In her books, she uses interviews to create a collage of a wide range of voices. With her "documentary novels", Alexievich, who is a journalist, moves in the boundary between reporting and fiction. Her major works includes the Chernobylskaya molitva ("Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster", 1997) and U voyny ne zhenskoe litso ("The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II", 1985). Her books criticize political regimes in both the Soviet Union and later Belarus as in Vremya sekond khend ("Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets", 2013).[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2015/alexievich/facts/ Svetlana Alexievich – Facts] nobelprize.org[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Svetlana-Alexievich Svetlana Alexievich] britannica.org

According to Peter Englund, there were a total of 198 writers nominated with 36 new candidates for the award.{{cite web|url=https://cronicadexalapa.com.mx/198-escritores-nominados-al-premio-nobel-de-literatura-2015/|title=198 escritores nominados al Premio Nobel de Literatura 2015|date=19 February 2015|website=Crónica de Xalapa|language=es}}{{cite web|url=https://www.dw.com/en/literature-nobel-prize-goes-to-journalist-svetlana-alexievich/a-18768026|title=Literature Nobel goes to Svetlana Alexievich|date=8 October 2015|website=DW}} Among the favorites for this year included were Svetlana Alexievich, Haruki Murakami, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Jon Fosse (awarded in 2023), Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Roth and Ko Un.{{cite magazine|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/123058/who-will-win-nobel-prize-literature|title=Who Will Win the Nobel Prize for Literature?|date=8 October 2015|magazine=The New Republic|author=Alex Shephard}}

In 2016, Alexievich hoped that Murakami wins the Nobel Prize, but was eventually awarded to Bob Dylan. She expressed: "I've read all of Murakami's works. I love this writer, although they say that it is a simplified literature. I like the oriental arrangement of events and their understanding, I am interested in."{{cite web|url=https://www.svaboda.org/a/28033081.html|title=Alexievich hopes Murakami will win the Nobel Prize for Literature|date=5 October 2016|website=svaboda.org|language=be |last1=Свабода |first1=Радыё }}

Alexievich herself rejects the notion that she is a journalist, and, in fact, Alexievich's chosen genre is sometimes called "documentary literature": an artistic rendering of real events, with a degree of poetic license.{{cite magazine|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/135719/witness-tampering|title=Witness Tampering|last=Pinkham|first=Sophie|date=29 August 2016|magazine=The New Republic|access-date=30 August 2016|archive-date=30 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160830171621/https://newrepublic.com/article/135719/witness-tampering|url-status=live}} In her own words:

{{quote|"I've been searching for a literary method that would allow the closest possible approximation to real life. Reality has always attracted me like a magnet, it tortured and hypnotized me, I wanted to capture it on paper. So I immediately appropriated this genre of actual human voices and confessions, witness evidences and documents. This is how I hear and see the world – as a chorus of individual voices and a collage of everyday details. This is how my eye and ear function. In this way all my mental and emotional potential is realized to the full. In this way I can be simultaneously a writer, reporter, sociologist, psychologist and preacher."}}

Alexievich delivered a Nobel lecture on December 7, 2015 entitled On the Battle Lost, which was originally in Russian. In her lecture, she depicted life during and after the Soviet Union through the various experience of individuals based on interviews and creating them into collages of memories.[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2015/alexievich/lecture/ Nobel lecture 2015] nobelprize.org

Sara Danius, in the presentation of the award, said:

{{quote|"Alexievich uncovers the face of evil in a truth process where 'heat incinerates the lies' and in language that, between the lines, conveys the silence of pain. She waits until the voices lodge in her, acquiring a harder sheen. This makes her the most sensitive of contemporary historians and a genre innovator."[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2015/ceremony-speech/ Ceremony speech] nobelprize.org}}

• 8 October 2015: Announcement of the 2015 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature in Stockholm by the Permanent Secretary Sara Danius.

Sara Danius in 2015-3.jpg

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{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2015/prize-announcement/ Prize announcement 2015] nobelprize.org
• [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2015/award-video/ Award Ceremony] nobelprize.org
• [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2015/ceremony-speech/ Award ceremony speech] nobelprize.org

{{Nobel Prize in Literature}}

{{2015 Nobel Prize winners}}

2015

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