Anybody here ever read her? She's a Belarusian writer. Actually, more of an interviewer who compiles oral histories based on Soviet themes. She's one of my favorite nonfiction writers (along with Robert Caro), even tho 90% of the words in her books aren't her own.
She won a Nobel Prize a few years ago 'for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.' And she's still underrated. She interviews a lot of old people, mostly women, who have never told their stories to anybody. Some of them are heartbreakingly sad. These aren't easy books to read.
Her bibliography is somewhat confusing, as all of her books have been republished a bunch of times, with various revisions and added text and new titles.
The Unwomanly Face of War (1985). Women in World War II.
Last Witnesses (1985). Children in World War II.
Boys in Zinc (1991). The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Enchanted With Death (1993). Suicides after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Voices from Chernobyl (1997).
Secondhand Time (2013). More stories about the collapse of the Soviet Union.
This woman is a saint. I wish that she could live for another hundred years so that she could keep writing these books. (She's 72, so that's unlikely.) I haven't been able to find 'Enchanted With Death' yet, so at least I have one more book to look forward to. I'm always disappointed when I mention her, and nobody knows who she is. People should read her books! That's why I posted this. Nothing would make me happier than to see somebody bump this thread in a few months raving about 'The Unwomanly Face of War.'
The Chernobyl book is a good place to start. An old woman living with her cat in the Forbidden Zone. Chechens who repatriated there because it was safer than living thru a war. Widows whose husbands died of cancer after being conscripted to put out the fire. Mothers of disabled children.
'Secondhand Time' has an amazing interview with a man who served 17 years in Stalin's camps, and whose wife died there, but still believed in Soviet Communism and ranted about capitalism.
We had the Chimuk brothers in our detachment…They ran into an ambush in their village, took refuge in some barn, there was shooting, the barn was set on fire. They went on shooting till they ran out of cartridges…Then they came out, burned…They were driven around the villages in a cart to see who would recognize them as their own. So that people would give themselves away…
The entire village stood there. Their father and mother stood there, nobody made a sound. What a heart the mother must have had not to cry out. Not to call. She knew that if she began to weep, the whole village would be burned down. She wouldn’t be killed alone. Everybody would be killed. For one German killed they used to burn an entire village. She knew…There exist awards for everything, but no award, not even the highest Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union is enough for that mother…For her silence…
Now…How long have we been sitting here talking? Meanwhile, a storm has come and gone, my neighbor stopped by, the phone rang…Those things also affected me, I responded to them as well. But the only things that will go down on paper are my words…There won’t be anything else: no neighbor, no phone calls…Things I didn’t say but which flashed through my memory, making their presence felt. Tomorrow, I might tell this story completely differently. The words remain, but I’ll have moved on. I have learned to live with this. I know how. I keep going and going.
Who gave me all of this? All of it…Was it God or people? If God gave it to me, then He chose well. Suffering brought me up…It’s my art…my prayer. So many times, I’ve wanted to tell someone all of it. To speak my fill. But no one has ever wanted to know: “And then what…and then what?” I’ve always waited for someone, whether it be a good or bad person, to come and listen to my story—I don’t know who exactly I had in mind, but I was always waiting for someone. My whole life, I’ve been waiting for someone to find me and I would tell them everything…and they would keep asking, “And then what? And then what?” Now, people have started blaming socialism, Stalin, as though Stalin had God-like powers. Everyone has their own God—why didn’t they speak up? My aunt…Our village…I also remember Maria Petrovna Aristova, a respected teacher who’d visit our Vladya in the hospital in Moscow. We weren’t related to her or anything…She’s the one who brought Vladya back to our village, who carried her home…Vladya couldn’t walk anymore. Maria Petrovna would send me pencils and candy and write me letters. And in the temporary foster center, when they were washing and disinfecting me…I was sitting on a high bench…all covered in foam. I could have slipped and broken my bones on the cement floor. I started slipping…sliding down…and a woman I didn’t know…a nanny…caught me in her arms and embraced me: “My little chickadee.”
I saw God.