Audiobooks by Svetlana Alexievich

La guerra non ha un volto di donna Audiobook

Se la guerra la raccontano le donne; se a farla raccontare è Svetlana Aleksievič; se le sue interlocutrici avevano in gran parte diciotto o diciannove anni quando sono corse al fronte per difendere la patria e gli ideali della loro giovinezza contro uno spietato aggressore, allora nasce un libro come questo. 22 giugno 1941: l'uragano che Hitler ha scatenato verso Est comporta per l'URSS la perdita di milioni di uomini e di vasti territori e il nemico arriva presto alle porte di Mosca. Centinaia di migliaia di donne vanno a integrare i vuoti di effettivi e alla fine saranno un milione: infermiere, radiotelegrafiste, cuciniere, ma anche soldati di fanteria, addette alla contraerea e carriste, genieri sminatori, aviatrici, tiratrici scelte. Attraverso un lavoro di anni e centinaia di conversazioni e interviste, l'autrice ha ricostruito il volto della guerra al femminile, che ''ha i propri colori, odori, una sua interpretazione dei fatti ed estensione dei sentimenti e anche parole sue''.

Svetlana Alexievich (Author), Cinzia Spanò (Narrator)

Audiobook

Chernobyl Prayer: Voices from Chernobyl

Brought to you by Penguin. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature - A new translation of Voices from Chernobyl based on the revised text - In April 1986 a series of explosions shook the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Flames lit up the sky and radiation escaped to contaminate the land and poison the people for years to come. While officials tried to hush up the accident, Svetlana Alexievich spent years collecting testimonies from survivors - clean-up workers, residents, firefighters, resettlers, widows, orphans - crafting their voices into a haunting oral history of fear, anger and uncertainty, but also dark humour and love. A chronicle of the past and a warning for our nuclear future, Chernobyl Prayer shows what it is like to bear witness, and remember in a world that wants you to forget. 'Absolutely essential and heartbreaking reading. There's a reason Ms. Alexievich won a Nobel Prize' - Craig Mazin, creator of the HBO / Sky TV series Chernobyl 'Beautifully written. . . heart-breaking' - Arundhati Roy, Elle 'One of the most humane and terrifying books I've ever read' - Helen Simpson, Observer © Svetlana Alexievich 2016 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Svetlana Alexievich (Author), Andrew Byron, Sasha Alexis (Narrator)

Audiobook

Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Last Witnesses by Svetlana Alexievich, read by Julia Emelin, Yelena Shmulenson and Allen Lewis Rickman. What did it mean to grow up in the Soviet Union during the Second World War? In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich started interviewing people who had experienced war as children, the generation that survived and had to live with the trauma that would forever change the course of the Russian nation. With remarkable care and empathy, Alexievich gives voice to those whose stories are lost in the official narratives, uncovering a powerful, hidden history of one of the most important events of the twentieth century. Published to great acclaim in the Soviet Union in 1985 and now available in English for the first time, this masterpiece offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human consequences of the war - and an extraordinary chronicle of the Russian soul.

Svetlana Alexievich (Author), Allen Lewis Rickman, Julia Emelin, Yelena Shmulenson (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Unwomanly Face of War

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexeivich, read by Julia Emelin and Yelena Shmulenson. Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style, The Unwomanly Face of War is Svetlana Alexievich's collection of stories from Soviet women who lived through the Second World War: on the front lines, on the home front and in occupied territories. As Alexievich gives voice to women who are absent from official narratives - captains, sergeants, nurses, snipers and pilots - she shows us a new version of the war we're so familiar with, creating an extraordinary alternative history from their private stories. Published in 1985 in Russia and now available in English for the first time, The Unwomanly Face of War was Alexievich's first book and a huge bestseller in the Soviet Union, establishing her as a brilliantly revolutionary writer.

Svetlana Alexievich (Author), Julia Emelin, Yelena Shmulenson (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

A long-awaited English translation of the groundbreaking oral history of women in World War II across Europe and Russia-from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature "A landmark."-Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century For more than three decades, Svetlana Alexievich has been the memory and conscience of the twentieth century. When the Swedish Academy awarded her the Nobel Prize, it cited her invention of "a new kind of literary genre," describing her work as "a history of emotions . . . a history of the soul." In The Unwomanly Face of War, Alexievich chronicles the experiences of the Soviet women who fought on the front lines, on the home front, and in the occupied territories. These women-more than a million in total-were nurses and doctors, pilots, tank drivers, machine-gunners, and snipers. They battled alongside men, and yet, after the victory, their efforts and sacrifices were forgotten. Alexievich traveled thousands of miles and visited more than a hundred towns to record these women's stories. Together, this symphony of voices reveals a different aspect of the war-the everyday details of life in combat left out of the official histories. Translated by the renowned Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, The Unwomanly Face of War is a powerful and poignant account of the central conflict of the twentieth century, a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human side of war. "But why? I asked myself more than once. Why, having stood up for and held their own place in a once absolutely male world, have women not stood up for their history? Their words and feelings? They did not believe themselves. A whole world is hidden from us. Their war remains unknown . . . I want to write the history of that war. A women's history."-Svetlana Alexievich Read by Julia Emelin, Yelena Shmulenson, Allen Lewis Rickman, and Alan Winter THE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time." "Patient in overcoming cliché, attentive to the unexpected, and restrained in exposition, her writing reaches those far beyond her own experiences and preoccupations, far beyond her generation, and far beyond the lands of the former Soviet Union."-Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century "Alexievich's artistry has raised oral history to a totally different dimension. It is no wonder that her brilliant obsession with what Vasily Grossman called 'the brutal truth of war' was suppressed for so long by Soviet censors, because her unprecedented pen portraits and interviews reveal the face of war hidden by propaganda."-Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege "[Alexievich moves] away from military narrative and [tells] the tales of Soviet women who took on male roles, fought on the front lines, killed and got killed, but still looked at the shattered world around them from a feminine perspective, focusing on human suffering and basic emotions free of any pathos."-Newsweek "A mighty documentarian and a mighty artist . . . Her books are woven from hundreds of interviews, in a hybrid form of reportage and oral history that has the quality of a documentary film on paper. But Alexievich is anything but a simple recorder and transcriber of found voices; she has a writerly voice of her own which emerges from the chorus she assembles, with great style and authority, and she shapes her investigations of Soviet and post-Soviet life and death into epic dramatic chronicles as universally essential as Greek tragedies."-The New Yorker

Larissa Volokhonsky, Richard Pevear, Svetlana Alexievich (Author), Julia Emelin, Yelena Shmulenson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

The magnum opus and latest work from Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature—a symphonic oral history about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing “a new kind of literary genre,” describing her work as “a history of emotions—a history of the soul.” Alexievich’s distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation. In Secondhand Time, Alexievich chronicles the demise of communism. Everyday Russian citizens recount the past thirty years, showing us what life was like during the fall of the Soviet Union and what it’s like to live in the new Russia left in its wake. Through interviews spanning 1991 to 2012, Alexievich takes us behind the propaganda and contrived media accounts, giving us a panoramic portrait of contemporary Russia and Russians who still carry memories of oppression, terror, famine, massacres—but also of pride in their country, hope for the future, and a belief that everyone was working and fighting together to bring about a utopia. Here is an account of life in the aftermath of an idea so powerful it once dominated a third of the world. A magnificent tapestry of the sorrows and triumphs of the human spirit woven by a master, Secondhand Time tells the stories that together make up the true history of a nation. “Through the voices of those who confided in her,” The Nation writes, “Alexievich tells us about human nature, about our dreams, our choices, about good and evil—in a word, about ourselves.” Praise for Svetlana Alexievich and Secondhand Time “For her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”—Nobel Prize Committee “For the past thirty or forty years [Alexievich has] been busy mapping the Soviet and post-Soviet individual, but [her work is] not really about a history of events. It’s a history of emotions . . . a history of the soul.”—Sara Danius, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy “Secondhand Time [is Alexievich’s] longest and most ambitious project to date: an effort to use an oral history of the nineties to understand Soviet and post-Soviet identity.”—The New Yorker “In this spellbinding book, Svetlana Alexievich orchestrates a rich symphony of Russian voices telling their stories of love and death, joy and sorrow, as they try to make sense of the twentieth century, so tragic for their country.”—J. M. Coetzee “[Alexievich’s] books are woven from hundreds of interviews, in a hybrid form of reportage and oral history that has the quality of a documentary film on paper. But Alexievich is anything but a simple recorder and transcriber of found voices; she has a writerly voice of her own which emerges from the chorus she assembles, with great style and authority, and she shapes her investigations of Soviet and post-Soviet life and death into epic dramatic chronicles as universally essential as Greek tragedies. . . . A mighty documentarian and a mighty artist.” —Philip Gourevitch “Alexievich’s voices are those of the people no one cares about, but the ones whose lives constitute the vast majority of what history actually is.”—Keith Gessen Read by a full cast: Amanda Carlin Mark Bramhall Cassandra Campbell Kimberly Farr Kirby Heyborne Hillary Huber Rebecca Lowman Jorjeana Marie Coleen Marlo Kathleen McInerney Fred Sanders

Svetlana Alexievich (Author), Svetlana Alexievich (Narrator)

Audiobook