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Last Witnesses

Unchildlike Stories

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About this listen

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Last Witnesses by Svetlana Alexievich, read by Julia Emelin, Yelena Shmulenson and Allen Lewis Rickman.

What did it mean to grow up in the Soviet Union during the Second World War? In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich started interviewing people who had experienced war as children, the generation that survived and had to live with the trauma that would forever change the course of the Russian nation.

With remarkable care and empathy, Alexievich gives voice to those whose stories are lost in the official narratives, uncovering a powerful, hidden history of one of the most important events of the twentieth century.

Published to great acclaim in the Soviet Union in 1985 and now available in English for the first time, this masterpiece offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human consequences of the war - and an extraordinary chronicle of the Russian soul.

 Children's Studies Military Russia Social Sciences War Soviet Union

Critic reviews

Svetlana Alexievich is quite simply the greatest practitioner of oral history ever known. She is unique (Antony Beevor)
D.H. Lawrence wrote that Hamlet's soliloquies are as deep as the soul of man can go. The opposite of soliloquies, Svetlana Alexievich's books go as deep as the soul of woman can go. And now she investigates the soul in the agonized process of historical formation (Geoff Dyer)
Alexievich serves no ideology, only an ideal: to listen closely enough to the ordinary voices of her time to orchestrate them into extraordinary books (Philip Gourevitch)
All stars
Most relevant
This is difficult to hear and the hardship and cruelty impossible to imagine until now. Spoken from the very soul. Everyone should hear to understand the real horror of war and the incredible power or people to survive. As I listened I often thought of the person as dead and I was reliving their story as you simply don't equate the person's story to someone who could have survived it. How it warmed my very heart to know not only these amazing people had survived but got to tell their story to me. Love every one of you for coming forward to share your survival of horror.

Everyone should have their story heard.

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This was a very difficult listen. I would recommend to all. Remarkable, disturbing, and ultimately, incredibly sad. The sacrifice’s of children who had no choice.

Harrowing - an absolute must.

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It was possible to stop for a week or so and then continue reading it without taking notice that you had a paus. A neverending true stories about people's lives in hard times!

A real story about people's lives

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