Belarus authorities bar Nobel laureate from holding meeting with fellow countrymen
No man is a prophet in his own land: while Svetlana Alexievich’s literary work is highly appreciated in the whole world, the Belarusian authorities keep ignoring her.
On May 31, the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature was celebrating her birthday. The prominent Belarusian writer wanted to spend the day in her native place and meeting with fellow countrymen in Homiel and Kapatkevichy, where she attended school. But she had to change her plansdue to local officials’ decision.
“People from all over the world called me and send birthday wishes, but I also received a worrying letter saying that the [Homiel] regional library refused to host my event. I am afraid there will be a problem in my school in Kapatkevichy as well. Homeland is appalling,” Svetlana Alexievich says with a sad irony.
In middle May, Italian journalist Tommasso Debenedetti posted fake information about the writer’s death on Twitter. The news was immediately spread by a number of French and Russian media outlets.
Svetlana Alexievich is a Soviet and Belarusian investigative journalist and prose writer. Her most notable works are War’s Unwomanly Face (monologues of women in the war speaking about the aspects of the Second World War which were hardly mentiond before), Zinky Boys (first-hand accounts from the war in Afghanistan ).
After persecution by Lukashenka regime, she left Belarus in 2000. The International Cities of Refuge Network offered her sanctuary and during the following decade she lived in Paris, Berlin and Gothenburg. In 2011 Alexievich moved back to Minsk.
In 2013, after receiving the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade Union the writer said that the Belarusian government ‘took no notice of her’.
Belsat TV was be the only Belarusian television channel broadcasting online the ceremony of Svetlana Alexievich receiving the Nobel award for literature. State-run Belteleradiocompany, ONT and STV ignored the event.
