Masha Gessen Reports on Svetlana Alexievich, the Belarusian Winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, and Her Determination to Represent the Will of Protesters in Belarus Despite State Intimidation

“I got through to Svetlana Alexievich . . . around two o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, in Minsk. It was noisy in her apartment. ‘There are about fifteen people here,’ she said. They had gathered to bear witness to whatever might happen to Alexievich, who is the last original member of the opposition Coordinating Council—formed last month after mass protests began in Belarus—who has been neither imprisoned nor forced into exile,” writes Gessen. “Strange men, who she assumed worked for President Alexander Lukashenka’s security services, had been ringing her doorbell the previous evening. ‘People have been gathering since nine in the morning. Ambassadors and others. It’s a kind of resistance through presence,’ she said.”

Post Date: 09-22-2020