2015 Nobel Prize for literature goes to Belarusian journalist and fiction writer Svetlana Alexievich

Belarusian journalist and fiction writer, Svetlana Alexievich, best know for writing about the emotional history of Soviet and post-Soviet individuals, has won the Nobel prize for literature beating Japan’s Haruki Murakami, Kenya’s Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and the Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse. The Guardian reports that the academy called while she was at home, “doing the ironing.”

She published her first book, War’s Unwomanly Face, an exploration of women’s experiences in the second world war in 1983. Her most notable works in English translation include a collection of first-hand accounts from the war in Afghanistan (Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from a Forgotten War) and a highly-praised oral history of the Chernobyl disaster (Voices from Chernobyl.)

The writer is quoted as saying that the 8m Swedish krona (£775,000) prize would “buy her freedom.”

She becomes the 14th woman to win the prize since it was first awarded in 1901. The last woman to win, Canada’s Alice Munro, was handed the award in 2013.