Secondhand time the last of the Soviets

First published in Russian in 2013.

Chronology -- Remarks from an accomplice -- I. The Consolation of Apocalypse -- Snatches of street noise and kitchen conversations (1991-2001) -- Ten Stories in a Red Interior -- On the beauty of dictatorship and the mystery of butterflies in cement -- On brothers and sisters, victims and executioners...and the electorate -- On cries and whispers...and exhilaration -- On the lonely red marshal and three days of forgotten revolution -- On the mercy of memories and the lust for meaning -- On a different Bible and a different kind of believer -- On the cruelty of the flames and salvation from above -- On the sweetness of suffering and the trick of the Russian soul -- On a time when anyone who kills believes that they are serving God -- On the little red flag and the smile of the axe -- II. The Charms of Emptiness -- Snatches of street noise and kitchen conversations (2002-2012) -- Ten Stories In The Absence of an Interior -- On Romeo and Juliet...except their names were Margarita and Abulfaz -- On people who instantly transformed after the fall of communism -- On a loneliness that resembles happiness -- On wanting to kill them all and the horror of realizing you really wanted to do it -- On the old crone with a braid and the beautiful young woman -- On a Stranger's Grief that God has deposited on your doorstep -- On life the bitch and one hundred grammes of fine powder in a little white vase -- On how nothing disgusts the dead and the silence of dust -- On the darkness of the evil one and "the other life we can build out of this one" -- On courage and what comes after -- Notes from an everywoman.

"From the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Svetlana Alexievich, comes the first English translation of her latest work, an oral history of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia. Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive documentary style, Secondhand Time is a monument to the collapse of the USSR, charting the decline of Soviet culture and speculating on what will rise from the ashes of communism. As in all her books, Alexievich gives voice to women and men whose stories are lost in the official narratives of nation-states, creating a powerful alternative history from the personal and private stories of individuals"--

"Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style of oral history, Secondhand Time is a monument to the collapse of the USSR, charting the decline of Soviet culture and speculating on what will rise from the ashes of Communism. As in all her books, Alexievich gives voice to women and men whose stories are lost in the official narratives of nation-states, creating a powerful alternative history from the personal and private stories of individuals. When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize in Literature, they praised her 'polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time,' and cited her for inventing 'a new kind of literary genre.' Sara Danius, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, added that her work comprises 'a history of emotions--a history of the soul'"--