Svetlana Alexievich (born 1948) is a Belarusian nonfiction writer and journalist. Born in present-day Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, to a Belarusian father and a Ukrainian mother, she grew up in Belarus. Drawing on her background in journalism, Alexievich pioneered a distinctive form of documentary literature based on hundreds of firsthand testimonies, giving voice to ordinary people who lived through the defining events of Soviet and post-Soviet history, including the Second World War, the Chernobyl disaster, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2015, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for her "polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time," becoming the first writer from Belarus to receive the honor. Through her powerful blend of oral history and literary craftsmanship, Alexievich has profoundly influenced contemporary nonfiction and expanded the possibilities of narrative literature.