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Title: The Unwomanly Face of War

Author: Svetlana Alexievich, Richard Pevear - translator, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator

Narrator: Julia Emelin, Yelena Shmulenson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-16-17

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexeivich, read by Julia Emelin and Yelena Shmulenson.

Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style, The Unwomanly Face of War is Svetlana Alexievich's collection of stories from Soviet women who lived through the Second World War: on the front lines, on the home front and in occupied territories. As Alexievich gives voice to women who are absent from official narratives - captains, sergeants, nurses, snipers and pilots - she shows us a new version of the war we're so familiar with, creating an extraordinary alternative history from their private stories.

Published in 1985 in Russia and now available in English for the first time, The Unwomanly Face of War was Alexievich's first book and a huge best seller in the Soviet Union, establishing her as a brilliantly revolutionary writer.

Members Reviews:

"Why was I left alive? What for? I think ... As I understand, its in order to tell about it"

What Studs Terkel did for the Great Depression inHard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depressionand the Second World War inThe Good War: An Oral History of World War II by Studs Terkel (1997-01-01), Alexievich has done, with an important twist: not only highlighting the Second World War (the "Great Patriotic War" as it is referred to in Russia), but showing the critical role women played in the conflict.

I first came across Alexievich withZinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War- when I discovered that a similar (earlier) project on World War II had just been translated, I had to pick up a copy. During the war, over 20 million Soviet citizens were killed (civilians as well as combatants), the Soviet army recruiting women as well men to fight given the desperate struggle. Among the many strengths of the book is the wide variety of perspectives and stories she has collected. Here you will find stories of women who were snipers and tank commanders, pilots and engineers searching for mines - but also the stories of truck drivers, radio operators, cooks, laundresses, physicians, nurses and medics, and logistical support - Soviet women were indeed fighting in every possible role, their stories largely marginalized or willfully forgotten until now.

And that is one of the aspects of the book that I found suprizing: World War II looms so large in the collective memory and history of the Soviet Union (and Russia),that the critical role women played in the conflict would be ignored or not discussed struck me as odd. In fact, many of those interviewed spoke about how they were treated after the war: as harlots, people who served only to find a man, or whose stories were suppressed by husbands who didn't want it known what their wives had done during the war. The sense of relief that they could finally tell their stories and the urgency that many interviewees expressed in searching out Alexievich is a recurring theme. As one woman described the end of the war, "They announced - Victory! I remember my first feeling - joy. And at once, that same moment - fear! Panic! Panic! How to live from here on? Papa had been killed at Stalingrad. My two older brothers had been missing in action since the beginning of the war. Mama and I were left. Two women. How were we to live? All girls fell to thinking ...