On her personal website, Alexievich explains her pursuit of journalism: "I chose a genre where human voices speak for themselves." Fittingly, Alexievich prefers to leave the stories to her many interviewees, letting eyewitness accounts shed an unsettling light on tragedies like World War II, the Soviet-Afghan War and the disaster at Chernobyl — an investigation that has been read aloud in excerpts on All Things Considered.
For that work, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people touched by the massive 1986 nuclear meltdown, which spread radioactivity on the wind across much of Eastern Europe.
"All of my books consist of witnesses' evidence, people's living voices," she told the Dalkey Archive Press. "I usually spend three to four years writing a book, but this time it took me more than ten years."
In an interview following the announcement, the Swedish Academy's permanent secretary, Sara Danius, elaborated on the decision.
"For the past 30 or 40 years, she has been busy mapping the Soviet and post-Soviet individual," Danius said. "But it's not really about a history of events; it's about a history of emotions."
If you're new to Alexievich's work, Danius added, she recommends beginning with War's Unwomanly Face — a history the Soviet women who fought as soldiers in the Second World War.