The Resume

(May 31, 1948- )
Born in Stanislav, Ukraine
Investigative journalist and oral historian
Citizen of Belarus
Wrote ‘War’s Unwomanly Face: An Oral History of Women in World War II’ (1985), ‘Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II’ (1985), ‘Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War’ (1991), ‘Voices from Chernobyl’ (1997), and ‘Second-Hand Time: The Last of the Soviets’ (2013)
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (2015)

Why she might be annoying:

When she published ‘War’s Unwomanly Face,’ the newspaper she was working for fired her and accused her of disgracing the national honor of the USSR.
She admitted, ‘I don’t know world literature that well. There are not so many good quality translations into Russian.’
Her works are not published in Belarus, so she is better known outside her homeland than in it.

Why she might not be annoying:

She adopted her sister’s daughter after her sister died from cancer related to exposure to radiation from Chernobyl.
She went into exile for a decade due to harassment from the government of Alexander Lukashenko.
She considers Feodor Dostoyevsky her literary hero.
Belarusian politician Andrei Sannikov said, ‘You can call her work nonfiction, but it’s more fascinating to read than fiction.’

Credit: C. Fishel

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• C. Fishel's Profiles [Series 76]
• Celebrities Born on the Same Date [May] (Ranked: 5311948)
• Exiles
• Historians
• I Adopted a Child
• Look at My Flowers
• Newspaper Journalists/Editors/Publishers
• Nobel Prize for Literature
• Profiles 47001-47250 (Ranked: 47027)

Year In Review:

In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 11 Votes: 90.91% Annoying
In 2020, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying