Prominent Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich has been elected Vice President of PEN International, Belarusian Centre Chairwoman Tatsiana Netbayeva, who is now taking part in the 85th annual PEN Congress in Manila, said on Facebook.
Святлана Алексіевіч была абраная віцэ-прэзідэнткай Міжнароднага ПЭНа. Віншуем!Таксама віцэ-прэзідэнтамі былі абраныя…
Opublikowany przez Таццяна Нядбай Wtorek, 1 października 2019
Orhan Pamuk (Turkey), Luisa Valenzuela (Argentina), Fransisco Sionil (Philippines), Elena Poniatowska (Mexico) will also take the Vice President positions at PEN International, a worldwide organization of Poets, Essayists and Novelists.
Svetlana Alexievich was born in 1948. She graduated from the Belarusian State University, Journalism Faculty.
Svetlana Alexievich is a Soviet and Belarusian investigative journalist and prose writer. Her most notable works are War’s Unwomanly Face (monologues of women in the war speaking about the aspects of the Second World War which were hardly mentiond before), Zinky Boys (first-hand accounts from the war in Afghanistan ).
After persecution by Lukashenka regime, she left Belarus in 2000. The International Cities of Refuge Network offered her sanctuary and during the following decade she lived in Paris, Berlin and Gothenburg. In 2011 Alexievich moved back to Minsk.
In 2013, after receiving the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade Union the writer said that the Belarusian government ‘took no notice of her’.
In 2015, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Svetlana Alexievich “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time”.
Belsat TV was be the only Belarusian television channel broadcasting online the ceremony of Svetlana Alexievich receiving the Nobel award for literature. State-run Belteleradiocompany, ONT and STV ignored the event.
