Eminent writers urge Russian speakers to tell truth of war in Ukraine

[Uncle Joe]

A group of eminent writers has appealed to Russian speakers around the world to convey the truth about the war in Ukraine by directly contacting Russian citizens using “all possible means of communication”.

The 17 signatories to the appeal include the Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich, a Belarusian author who writes in Russian. She won the Nobel prize for literature in 2015 for writing described as “a monument to courage and suffering in our time”.

Another dozen distinguished authors from around the world, including the Nobel laureate JM Coetzee, have backed the appeal.

It comes as the Russian government cracked down on access to news and information about the invasion of Ukraine by blocking websites and effectively closing broadcast outlets.

(snip)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/05/eminent-writers-urge-russian-speakers-to-tell-truth-of-war-in-ukraine

[Igel]

1. "Boys in Zinc."

That's the book most connected to her name.

1989 saw the publication of The Boys in Zinc, a book about the criminal Soviet-Afghan war that had been concealed from the Soviet people for ten years. To collect material for the book Alexievich traveled around the country for four years to meet war victims’ mothers and veterans of the Afghan war. She also visited the war zone in Afghanistan. The book was a bombshell and many people could not forgive the author for de-mythologizing the war. To begin with, the military and Communist papers attacked Alexievich. In 1992, court proceedings were opened against the author and her book in Minsk. The democratically minded public rose in defense of the book. The case was closed.

(https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2015/alexievich/biographical/)