Svetlana Alexievich met with Belarusians in Minsk for the first time after the Nobel Prize Award

TUT.BY

The meeting took place in a warm and hearty atmosphere.

The book “Svetlana Alexievich at Liberty” was presented at Minsk Palace of Sport on Aril 14. It was Svetlana Alexievich’s first public speech made after she had received the Nobel Prize, Euroradio informs.

The meeting with readers lasted for more than two hours. Writers Uladzimir Arlou and Barys Piatrovich, journalist Aliaksandr Lukashuk, culture expert Julia Charniauskaja and other people spoke about Alexievich’s personality and creative work.

The Nobel Prize laureate answered questions that the people asked. She was asked what united Belarusians and replied: “Chernobyl (unfortunately) and the language and culture since they are needed to make our nation known.”

“I wrote the encyclopedia of the ‘red utopia’. I think I said everything I could. Good literature is distinguished by the taste for metaphysics which is in love and death,” Svetlana Alexievich said.

“I am currently working on a new book about love. It is not devoted to social [problems] – it is about men and women, about eternal and human things. What is the most difficult for me is to understand the males and the youth. It is easy to say “Oh, they are just youngsters!” But they are quite different people,” Belsat quotes the Nobel Prize winner saying.

The Small Hall of the Palace of Republic, which holds nearly 500 people, was full. At the meeting the book “Alexievich At Svaboda” was presented by the Union of Belarusian Writers and Radio Svaboda (RFE/RL).

Answering the questions, the writer stressed she was greatly impressed with the atmosphere of changes in Ukraine from where she had returned shortly before the meeting. “The Ukrainians are striving for the future,” Alexievich stated.

Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko, who was visiting Japan while the Belarusian writer was in Ukraine, asked her whether she could stay another day and meet with him.

At the end of the meeting, the Nobel laureate apologized for not granting many interviews.

“I am tired of myself. There are many presentations of my books, I should attend them, and every conversation needs concentration.”

After the meeting, the fans patiently stood in a two-hour line for the first Belarusian Nobel laureate’s autograph; Svetlana Alexievich managed to have a word with each of them. Five pens were used up at the autograph signing session.

As “EuroBelarus” Information Service has earlier informed, Svetlana Alexievich will be the honorary chairperson of the organising committee of the Chernobyl Path (Charnobylski Shlyakh) in 2016.