The Swedish Academy has announced that the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2015 goes to Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich.

Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy Sara Danius made the announcement.

Alexievich was born on May 31, 1948 in the Ukrainian town of Ivano-Frankivsk, the daughter of a Belarusian father and a Ukrainian mother. When her father had completed his military service, the family moved to Belarus, where both parents worked as teachers.

Alexievich worked as a teacher and as a journalist, and she studied journalism at the University of Minsk.

Danius recommended that people read her first book "War's Unwomenly Face" translated into English in 1988. It was about one million Soviet women in the red army who participated in the Second World War alongside male soldiers.

Alexievich's book Voices of Utopia and Voices from Chernobyl about nuclear proliferation were also recommended by Danius.