Svetlana Alexievich

I was born in a big city - Ivano-Frankivsk in Ukraine - but when I was a child, my father moved us back to his homeland in Minsk.

From the point of view of art, the butcher and the victim are equal as people. You need to see the people.

We thought we'd leave communism behind, and everything would turn out fine. But it turns out you can't leave this and become free, because these people don't understand what freedom is.

Nobody thought the Soviet Union would collapse; it was a shock for everyone.

I'm interested in little people. 'The little, great people' is how I would put it, because suffering expands people.

I have three homes: my Belarusian land, the homeland of my father, where I have lived my whole life; Ukraine, the homeland of my mother, where I was born; and Russia's great culture, without which I cannot imagine myself. All are very dear to me.