Svetlana Alexievich wins Nobel prize in literature

ANKARA

Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich has been awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature, the Swedish Academy announced Thursday.

She is the first writer from Belarus and the 14th woman to claim the prestigious prize in literature "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time", according to the citation for the award.

Alexievich said on her website: "I'm searching life for observations, nuances, details. Because my interest in life is not the event as such, not war as such, not Chernobyl as such, not suicide as such. What I am interested in is what happens to the human being, what happens to it in of our time. How does man behave and react. How much of the biological man is in him, how much of the man of his time, how much man of the man."

Alexievich was born in Ukraine and studied journalism at Minsk University. She has worked as a journalist since 1972.