A must read -- Margaret Atwood
Magnificent. . . Alexievich doesn't just hear what these women say; she cares about how they speak. . . It's a mark of her exceptional mind that she tries to retain the incomprehensible in any human story -- Gaby Wood * Daily Telegraph Books of the Year *
Brilliant -- Kamila Shamsie * Guardian Books of the Year *
Nothing can quite prepare the reader for the shattering force of The Unwomanly Face of War, Svetlana Alexievich's oral history of Soviet women in the second world war. In the midst of such colossal suffering hundreds of little details stick in the mind -- Geoff Dyer * Guardian Books of the Year *
An astonishing book, harrowing and life-affirming. It deserves the widest possible readership -- Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
Extraordinary. . . it would be hard to find a book that feels more important or original. . . Alexievich's strength - and a mark of her own courage - is that she is forever on the lookout for the seemingly inconsequential, almost trivial human moments. . . Her achievement is as breathtaking as the experiences of these women are awe-inspiring -- Viv Groskop * Observer *
A revelation. . . Alexievich's text gives us precious details of the kind that breathe life into history . . . This is a book about emotions as much as it is about facts. It is not a historical document in the accepted sense. . . and yet ultimately, which historical documents are more important than this? -- Lyuba Vinogradova * Financial Times *
A profoundly humbling, devastating book, it should be compulsory reading for anyone wishing to understand the experience of the war and its haunting legacy in the former Soviet Union -- Daniel Beer * Literary Review *
These stories about the women warriors of Mother Russia are a symphony of feminine suffering and strength. . . Read this book. And then read it again -- Gerard DeGroot * The Times *
Astonishing. . . Her years of meticulous listening, her unobtrusiveness and her ear for the telling detail and the memorable story have made her an exceptional witness to modern times. . . This is oral history at its finest and it is also an essay on the power of memory, on what is remembered and what is forgotten -- Caroline Moorehead * Guardian *
One of the most heart-breaking books I have ever read. . . I urge you to read it -- Julian Evans * Daily Telegraph *
The least well-known wonderful writer I've ever come across -- Jenni Murray * BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour *
As with her other books, terrifying documentation meets great artfulness of construction -- Julian Barnes * Guardian, Summer Reading *
Groundbreaking. . . a mosaic of Russian women's stories - from the home front to the front lines, from foot soldiers to cryptographers to antiaircraft commanders * Elle *
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
The Belarusian writer has spent decades in listening mode. Alexievich put in thousands of hours with her tape recorder across the lands of the former Soviet Union, collecting and collating stories from ordinary people. She wove those tales into elegant books of such power and insight, that in 2015 she received the Nobel prize for literature -- Shaun Walker * Guardian *
Alexievich's "documentary novels" are crafted and edited with a reporter's cool eye for detail and a poet's ear for the intricate rhythms of human speech. Reading them is like eavesdropping on a confessional. This is history at its rawest and most uncomfortably intimate. . . The book is not merely a corrective to male-centred accounts of conflict; it is a shattering and sometimes overwhelming experience -- Andrew Dickson * Evening Standard *
A remarkable collection of testimonies. . . Sitting at kitchen tables, Alexievich coaxes out of the women stories that describe a reality vastly different from the officially sanctioned version * New Yorker *
Magnificent. . . After decades of the war being remembered by 'men writing about men,' she aims to give voice to an aging generation of women who found themselves dismissed not just as storytellers but also as veterans, mothers and even potential wives. . . Alexievich presents less a straightforward oral history of World War II than a literary excavation of memory itself * New York Times Book Review *
A powerful and deeply moving document . . . giving voices to the women who served alongside their male counterparts only to have been rendered invisible, afterward, through sexist societal and bureaucratic systems * Vice *
Reveals the harrowing, brave, and even quotidian memories of Soviet women whose voices were nearly stifled by the mores of history. These accounts fight our ingrained ideas about what makes a war story -- Sloane Crosley * Vanity Fair *
The exploitation of the memory of the war has been the central element of modern Russian ideology. It is what makes Ms Alexievich's work so relevant today * Economist *
A landmark in the study of female soldiers. . . Alexievich's method is the close interrogation of the past through the collection of individual voices; patient in overcoming cliche, 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
Svetlana Alexievich rightly says she is a writer, not a historian. In her hands, the spoken word, even written down, conveys the vividness of individual experience, for it has the power of witness * Guardian *
We should resolve to read this book alongside the world news report. . . Ms. Alexievich never tries to simplify. . . Refusing to pass judgment, crediting all, she listens, suffers and brings to life * Wall Street Journal *
