The Unwomanly Face of War
Svetlana Alexievich, Светлана Алексиевич · 1985 · 365 pages
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Some book links are affiliate links; you pay the same price and we may earn a small commission.
About this book
A long-awaited English translation of the groundbreaking oral history of women in World War II across Europe and Russia—from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • The Guardian • NPR • The Economist • Milwaukee Journal Sentinel • Kirkus Reviews For more than three decades, Svetlana Alexievich has been the memory and conscience of the twentieth century. When the Swedish Academy awarded her the Nobel Prize, it cited her invention of “a new kind of literary genre,” describing her work as “a history of emotions . . . a history of the soul.” In The Unwomanly Face of War, Alexievich chronicles the experiences of the Soviet women who fought on the front lines, on the home front, and in the occupied territories. These women—more than a million in total—were nurses and doctors, pilots, tank drivers, machine-gunners, and snipers. They battled alongside men, and yet, after the victory, their efforts and sacrifices were forgotten. Alexievich traveled thousands of miles and visited more than a hundred towns to record these women’s stories. Together, this symphony of voices reveals a different aspect of the war—the everyday details of life in combat left out of the official histories. Translated by the renowned Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, The Unwomanly Face of War is a powerful and poignant account of the central conflict of the twentieth century, a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human side of war. THE WINNER
Appears in these reading paths
The Siege of Leningrad: books to read, in order
Svetlana Alexievich Reading Order: Where to Begin with the Oral Histories
Best Books on the Eastern Front in the Second World War, in Reading Order
Related reading guides
Reader reviews
Ratings and notes from readers — tagged with how deep into the subject they were.
Loading reviews…