![]() ![]() It also gives an insight into the pysche of people who grew up with socialism and had to adapt to a new world after 1991. Then there is the arc of history and seeing how the country and former empire has evolved into the Russia of today. Alexievich calls this a history of ‘domestic’ socialism. First, the human stories are interesting, sometimes told with dark humour, sometimes poignant and even tragic. Second-Hand Time is fascinating on many levels. Alexievich has collected first-hand accounts of ordinary people who tell their stories of life in Russia (and former Soviet countries) through the twentieth century up to 2012. Svetlana Alexievich won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature, so I expected her book to be weighty and important. I hadn’t realised how long it was (700 odd pages) and thought I might dip in and out of the stories, but was completely engrossed. I bought Second-Hand Time after a friend recommended it. ![]()
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