Alexievich

Svetlana Alexievich, an investigative journalist and nonfiction writer who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature, will deliver the 2016-17 Bartels World Affairs Fellowship Lecture, “Voices From the People: The Rise and Fall of the Russian-Soviet Dream,” Monday, Sept. 12, at 4:30 p.m. in Statler Auditorium. She will speak in Russian with on-screen translation. The event is free and open to all; a book signing and reception will follow. She will also visit classes for informal meetings and discussions with students.

A critic of Russia’s ruling regime, she was born in Ivano-Frankovsk, Ukraine, and lives in Minsk, Belarus. The Swedish Academy cited her work on WWII-era Russian women and the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster as “a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”

Alexievich won the Nobel for her collected literary nonfiction and has created a literary nonfiction genre entirely her own. She writes what she calls “novels of voices,” a genre she has developed book after book, constantly honing the aesthetic of her documentary prose based on hundreds of interviews. Her skill allows her to intertwine the original voices of her subjects into an artful condensation.

Alexievich’s six prose volumes, including “War’s Unwomanly Face” and “The Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future,” represent the history of a people’s mentality. Each book questions the meaning and meaninglessness of political ideologies and the makings of humankind. Her books have been translated into 47 languages and published in 52 countries, formed the basis for a dozen plays, and more than 20 of her scripts have been filmed as documentaries. Her latest book is “The Wonderful Deer of the Eternal Hunt.”

The Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels World Affairs Fellowship, established in 1984 to bring prominent international leaders to Cornell to foster a broadened world view among Cornell students, is organized by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.