Belarus writer wins Nobel literature prize

Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich has won the 2015 Nobel Literature Prize.

Belarusian author and investigative journalist Svetlana Alexievich has won the 2015 Nobel Literature Prize.

The Swedish Academy honoured the 67-year-old "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time".

Alexievich, 67, used the skills of a journalist to create literature chronicling the great tragedies of the Soviet Union and its collapse: World War II, the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Her first novel, The Unwomanly Face of the War, published in 1985 and based on the previously untold stories of women who had fought against the Nazi Germans, sold more than two million copies.

Her books have been published in 19 countries. She also has written three plays and the screenplays for 21 documentary films.

Last year's literature award went to French writer Patrick Modiano.

All Nobel awards will be handed out on December 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.