內容簡介
2015年諾貝爾文學獎得主斯維拉娜．亞歷塞維奇（Svetlana Alexievich）最新鉅著，描繪蘇聯解體到新俄羅斯出現的口述歷史
「《Secondhand Time》是（亞歷塞維奇）到目前為止，最長也最具野心的計畫：她以九零年代的口述歷史紀錄，了解蘇聯與後蘇聯國家的身分。」－－《紐約客》（The New Yorker ）
「在這本令人著迷的書中，斯維拉娜．亞歷塞維奇編寫了一部交響樂，交織成俄國人愛與死亡、喜悅與哀傷的故事，他們試著理解二十世紀，一個對他們的國家而言如此悲劇的一個世紀。」－－2003年諾貝爾文學獎得主柯慈（J. M. Coetzee）
當瑞典學院將諾貝爾文學獎頒給斯維拉娜．亞歷塞維奇時，他們讚譽她創造了「一種新的文學類型」，並稱她的作品是「情感的歷史、靈魂的歷史」。亞歷塞維奇出眾的記實風格，融合個人獨白的延伸與各式各樣的聲音，記錄少有機會發言的人們的故事；他們的經驗，總是失落在官方記錄的歷史洪流中。
在《Secondhand Time》中，亞歷塞維奇記錄了共產黨的衰亡。俄羅斯的平民百姓回憶過去的三十年，向讀者展現，在蘇聯瓦解時的生活，以及新俄羅斯甦醒時的生活，是什麼樣子。亞歷塞維奇以1991年到2012年的訪談，帶讀者走入宣傳活動與矯揉造作媒體報導的表象之下，全面性的描繪當代俄羅斯，以及仍留有受壓迫、恐怖統治、饑荒與屠殺記憶的俄羅斯人，同時也描寫他們對國家的驕傲、對未來的希望、以及曾經因為創造烏托邦的信念，努力工作與奮鬥的每一個人；這部作品記錄了這種在當時如此強烈的想法，所造成的後果。
《Secondhand Time》記錄各種悲傷以及人類精神的勝利，所訴說的故事拼湊成的，是一個國家真正的歷史。
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing a new kind of literary genre, describing her work as a history of emotions a history of the soul. Alexievich 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 it 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, massacres 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. Through the voices of those who confided in her, The Nation writes, Alexievich tells us about human nature, about our dreams, our choices, about good and evil in a word, about ourselves.
Praise for Svetlana Alexievich andSecondhand Time
There are many worthwhile books on the post-Soviet period and Putin s ascent. . . . But the 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 Alexievich s oral history Secondhand Time. David Remnick, The New Yorker
Like the greatest works of fiction, Secondhand Timeis a comprehensive and unflinching exploration of the human condition. . . . In its scope and wisdom, Secondhand Timeis comparable toWar and Peace. The Wall Street Journal
Already hailed as a masterpiece across Europe, Secondhand Timeis 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. The New York Times
There s been nothing in Russian literature as great or personal or troubling asSecondhand Timesince Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn sThe Gulag Archipelago, nothing as necessary and overdue. . . . This is the kind of history, otherwise almost unacknowledged by today s dictatorships, that matters. The Christian Science Monitor
In 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. J. M. Coetzee
From the Hardcover edition.