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Book Cover for: Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War, Svetlana Alexievich

Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War

Svetlana Alexievich

Paperback
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Before the United States' invasion, a million Soviet troops fought a devastating war in Afghanistan that claimed 50,000 casualties--and the youth and humanity of many tens of thousands more. The Soviet Union talked about a "peacekeeping" mission, while the dead were shipped back in zinc-lined coffins. In this new translation, Zinky Boys weaves together the candid and affecting testimony of the officers and grunts, doctors and nurses, mothers, sons, and daughters who describe the war and its lasting effects. A "masterpiece of reportage" (Timothy Snyder, New York Review of Books) emerges of harrowing and unforgettable insight into war.

Book Details

  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
  • Publish Date: Feb 21st, 2023
  • Pages: 304
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.22in - 5.56in - 0.70in - 0.53lb
  • EAN: 9781324051121
  • Categories: • Europe - General• Russia - General• Middle East - General

About the Author

Alexievich, Svetlana: - Svetlana Alexievich, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, is a journalist and author. She lives in Minsk, Belarus.

More books by Svetlana Alexievich

Book Cover for: Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, Svetlana Alexievich
Book Cover for: Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, Svetlana Alexievich
Book Cover for: Voces de Chernobil: Cronica del Futuro = Voices of Chernobyl, Svetlana Alexievich
Book Cover for: The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II, Svetlana Alexievich
Book Cover for: Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future, Svetlana Alexievich
Book Cover for: Last Witnesses (Adapted for Young Adults), Svetlana Alexievich
Book Cover for: In Search of the Free Individual: The History of the Russian-Soviet Soul, Svetlana Alexievich
Book Cover for: Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II, Svetlana Alexievich
Book Cover for: La Guerra No Tiene Rostro de Mujer / The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II, Svetlana Alexievich
Book Cover for: Últimos Testigos: Los Niños de la Segunda Guerra Mundial/ Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets: Los Niños de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, Svetlana Alexievich

What people are saying

Mentioner image for: The Economist
The Economist
@TheEconomist
2 years

News and analysis with a global perspective. We’re here to help you understand the world around you. Subscribe here: https://t.co/KohvozkN6F

Svetlana Alexievich’s “Zinky Boys” is about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Scenes from the book are a reminder of how little has changed https://t.co/G0hck3F6Ui

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Mentioner image for: Katrina vandenHeuvel
Katrina vandenHeuvel
@KatrinaNation
2 years

Katrina van den Heuvel is publisher and editorial director of The Nation.

Svetlana Alexievich's 'Zinky Boys' gives voice to the voiceless, to those who returned in 1989 from Soviet’s Afghan War, 1000 returned in “zinky” coffins or body bags /https://t.co/RBt2Azod7x

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Mentioner image for: Philip Gourevitch
Philip Gourevitch
@PGourevitch
3 years

Philip Gourevitch is a staff writer for the Atlantic.

keep thinking of Svetlana Alexievich’s great book Boys in Zinc (aka Zinky Boys) about Russian debacle in Afghanistan, told through voices of Russian conscripts and of their mothers trying to find and bring them home — zinc was the material used for soviet military coffins https://t.co/rBXpebuCae

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Praise for this book

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 "New Yorker"
What Alexievich is doing is giving voice to the voiceless, exposing not only stories we wouldn't otherwise hear but individuals as well.--David Ulin "Los Angeles Times"
A masterpiece of reportage, probably her best book.--Timothy Snyder "New York Review of Books"
Superbly translated...Alexievich's choice of truth as hero is the right one for the age of Putin and Trump.--Giles Whittell "Times (UK)"
Alexievich is like a doctor probing the scar tissue of a traumatised nation.--Guy Chazan "Financial Times"
Alexievich put in thousands of hours with her tape recorder across the lands of the former Soviet Union, collecting and collating stories from ordinary people. She wove those tales into elegant books of...power and insight--Shaun Walker "Guardian"
Shattering and addictive...This is a polyphonic tour de force that shines a light on war, the plight of heroes, and why post-Soviet Russia is as it is.--Kapka Kassabova "Herald Scotland"
Alexievich's 'documentary novels' are crafted and edited with a reporter's cool eye for detail and a poet's ear for the intricate rhythms of human speech. Reading them is like eavesdropping on a confessional. This is history at its rawest and most uncomfortably intimate.--Andrew Dickson "Evening Standard"
For the past 30 or 40 years [Alexievich has] been busy mapping the Soviet and post-Soviet individual, but [her work is] not really about a history of events. It's a history of emotions--what she's offering us is really an emotional world...a history of the soul.--Sara Danius, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy
[Alexievich's] books...are extraordinary: compelling, profound, and urgent.--Claire Messud "Harper's Magazine"

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