Updated at 17:53,27-03-2024

Book by Svetlana Alexievich named among 10 best books of 2016 by WP

BelarusFeed

Book by Svetlana Alexievich named among 10 best books of 2016 by WP
The Washington Post described Secondhand Time, a novel the Belarusian writer and Nobel prize winner, as “raw and powerful”.

The list includes 10 best books of 2016 that the newspaper believes to be “exceptionally rewarding”. It includes, among others, the latest novels by Ann Patchett and Zadie Smith, as well as non-fiction books about genetics and the history of the SAS, Britain’s Secret Special Force.

The work of the Belarusian is recommended to those willing to immerse into the emotions and memories of the Soviet society caught in the throes of change.

“Alexievich turns on a tape recorder and listens to average Russians describing their lives amid the disintegration of the Soviet Union… makes it feel intimate, as if you are sitting in the kitchen with the characters, sharing in their happiness and agony, enveloped in their nostalgia and riven with their anxiety”, the authors of the outlook write.

The English language translation of Secondhand Time was published by Random House, the U.S. biggest publishing house, which intended to publish three novels by the Belarusian writer.