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Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

by Svetlana Alexievich and Bela Shayevich
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

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ISBN13: 9780399588822
ISBN10: 0399588825



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In the Western consciousness, the disintegration of the Soviet Union was defined by one moment, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 — the Cold War, and freedom, were won, roll credits — but the reality was far more complex. To the Soviet people, what the Western powers epitomized as the final triumph of liberal democracy was, for better or worse, a massive and ongoing rupture, a complete disintegration and reformation of their beliefs, values, and lives. Secondhand Time gives voice to those who lived through that rupture. Alexievich's genius is in her ability to get out of the way, to let her interviewees tell their stories in their own words. Her focus is not on creating a single narrative; rather, she plumbs the depths of her subjects' hearts and minds to create an oral history of a people living through the death of one way of life and the birth of a new one. Recommended By Emily B., Powells.com

Alexievich's journalism is unlike anything I've read before. This cross-generational account of the end of the Soviet Union is wide in scope, but there are familiar, human stories at its heart. Extensive knowledge of the USSR isn't required, but anyone who finishes this book will find renewed interest in the Soviets. Recommended By Ashleigh B., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES • THE WASHINGTON POST • THE BOSTON GLOBE • THE WALL STREET JOURNAL • NPR • FINANCIAL TIMES • KIRKUS REVIEWS

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."

Review

"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." J. M. Coetzee

Review

"This is the kind of history, otherwise almost unacknowledged by today’s dictatorships, that matters." The Christian Science Monitor

Review

"Already hailed as a masterpiece across Europe, Secondhand Time is an intimate portrait of a country yearning for meaning after the sudden lurch from Communism to capitalism in the 1990s plunged it into existential crisis." The New York Times

Review

"Like the greatest works of fiction, Secondhand Time is a comprehensive and unflinching exploration of the human condition.... In its scope and wisdom, Secondhand Time is comparable to War and Peace." The Wall Street Journal

Review

"The nonfiction volume that has done the most to deepen the emotional understanding of Russia during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union of late is Svetlana Alexievich’s oral history Secondhand Time." David Remnick, The New Yorker

About the Author

Svetlana Alexievich was born in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, in 1948 and has spent most of her life in the Soviet Union and present-day Belarus, with prolonged periods of exile in Western Europe. Starting out as a journalist, she developed her own nonfiction genre, which gathers a chorus of voices to describe a specific historical moment. Her works include War’s Unwomanly Face (1985), Last Witnesses (1985), Zinky Boys (1990), Voices from Chernobyl (1997), and Secondhand Time (2013). She has won many international awards, including the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time."

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`
Doug Korty , July 24, 2020 (view all comments by Doug Korty)
The author won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015 and wrote this book in 2016. Here earlier books must have been far better. This book is narrative nonfiction, there is no index, no notes, no bibliography and not much in the way of objective information in the book such that you would want to find in a nonfiction book. It consists of interviews and descriptions of people and places. It is dark and depressing and repetitive in the extreme. I have never been to Russia but I have known quite a few Russians, some of them were negative people but not nearly as dark as the people in this book. I don't doubt that the author did her research but I do think the book is biased toward showing the worst of the situation and fails to present much in the way of object information. One reviewer said it reads like a novel, I would say a bad novel. I think there must be much better books on Russia. I don't recommend this one.

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Kristina , December 13, 2017 (view all comments by Kristina)
Alexievich skillfully weaves together dozens of interviews with people from all over the former Soviet Union in this masterpiece. The result is a stunning portrait of a country that today only exists in the memories of its surviving people. The book provides a great deal of insight into the recent history of modern-day Russia and Eastern Europe, while also providing a glimpse of what it was actually like to live there immediately before, during, and after the collapse of communism. Alexievich’s approach to relating history through the stories of individual citizens is unique and powerful.

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WY , September 14, 2017 (view all comments by WY)
Svetlana Alexievich brings the post-Soviet era of Russia into sharp relief through multiple eyes. It was moving, fascinating, and a little disturbing to see the rapid cultural shift through so many perspectives, including a Romeo and Juliet-esque Azerbaijan and Armenian romance, or the woman who left her husband for a man imprisoned for murder. Alexievich doesn't let the reader get complacent and be able to skim the pages. Instead, she challenges each person to think about who they feel sympathy for or realize a disquieting resemblance to, and why. A very powerful and deeply thought-provoking book.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780399588822
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
03/21/2017
Publisher:
Random House Trade
Pages:
496
Height:
1.20IN
Width:
5.60IN
Translator:
Bela Shayevich
Author:
Svetlana Aleksievich

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