Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER â€¢ The magnum opus and latest work from Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literatureâ€”a symphonic oral history about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POSTÂ ANDÂ PUBLISHERS WEEKLY â€¢Â LOS ANGELES TIMESÂ BOOK PRIZE FINALIST

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The New York Times â€¢ The Washington Post â€¢ The Boston GlobeÂ â€¢ The Wall Street JournalÂ â€¢ NPR â€¢ Financial Times â€¢ Kirkus Reviews

When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing â€œa new kind of literary genre,â€ describing her work as â€œa history of emotionsâ€”a history of the soul.â€ Alexievichâ€™s distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation.

In Secondhand Time, Alexievich chronicles the demise of communism. Everyday Russian citizens recount the past thirty years, showing us what life was like during the fall of the Soviet Union and what itâ€™s like to live in the new Russia left in its wake. Through interviews spanning 1991 to 2012, Alexievich takes us behind the propaganda and contrived media accounts, giving us a panoramic portrait of contemporary Russia and Russians who still carry memories of oppression, terror, famine, massacresâ€”but also of pride in their country, hope for the future, and a belief that everyone was working and fighting together to bring about a utopia. Here is an account of life in the aftermath of an idea so powerful it once dominated a third of the world.

A magnificent tapestry of the sorrows and triumphs of the human spirit woven by a master, Secondhand Time tells the stories that together make up the true history of a nation. â€œThrough the voices of those who confided in her,â€ The Nation writes, â€œAlexievich tells us about human nature, about our dreams, our choices, about good and evilâ€”in a word, about ourselves.â€

Praise for Svetlana Alexievich andÂ Secondhand Time

â€œThe nonfiction volume that has done the most to deepen the emotional understanding of Russia during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union of late is Svetlana Alexievichâ€™s oral history Secondhand Time.â€â€”David Remnick, The New Yorker

â€œLike the greatest works of fiction,Â Secondhand TimeÂ is a comprehensive and unflinching exploration of the human condition. . . . In its scope and wisdom,Â Secondhand TimeÂ is comparable toÂ War and Peace.â€â€”The Wall Street Journal

â€œAlready hailed as a masterpiece across Europe,Â Secondhand TimeÂ is an intimate portrait of a country yearning for meaning after the sudden lurch from Communism to capitalism in the 1990s plunged it into existential crisis.â€â€”The New York Times

â€œThis is the kind of history, otherwise almost unacknowledged by todayâ€™s dictatorships, that matters.â€â€”The Christian Science Monitor

â€œIn this spellbinding book, Svetlana Alexievich orchestrates a rich symphony of Russian voices telling their stories of love and death, joy and sorrow, as they try to make sense of the twentieth century.â€â€”J. M. Coetzee
Country USA
Brand Random House Books for Young Readers
Manufacturer Random House
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber 0399588809
Model 0399588809
ReleaseDate 2016-05-24
UnitCount 1
Format Deckle Edge
EANs 9780399588808

Country	USA
Brand	Random House Books for Young Readers
Manufacturer	Random House
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	0399588809
Model	0399588809
ReleaseDate	2016-05-24
UnitCount	1
Format	Deckle Edge
EANs	9780399588808

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

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