Svetlana Alexandrovna Alexievich[1] (born 31 May 1948 in Stanislaviv, Ukrainian SSR) is a Belarusian investigative journalist and non-fiction prose writer who writes in Russian. She was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time".[2][3][4][5] She is the first writer from Belarus to receive the award.