LouisvilleReads | Special Ukraine Episode | Secondhand Time (2016) | Svetlana Alexievich | 6-22-22

Special Ukraine Episode of LouisvilleReads. Read and reviewing Belarussian journalist and winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature Svetlana Alexievich's 2016 'Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets'. Capping off nearly three decades of collection the oral history of the Soviet peoples from WWII, the late 20th century Soviet-Afghan War, and the 1986 Chernobyl Disaster, Alexievich captures the social and psychological landscape of the former Eastern Bloc from the 1990's forward as "Soviet Man" ("Homo Sovieticus" per Soviet writer and sociologist Aleksandr Zinovyev) labors to discover what fits (and what doesn't) in the 21st century. Interview with the author on the back courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library!