"The book wasn’t published for two years, not before perestroika and Gorbachev. “After reading your book no one will fight,” the censor lectured me. “Your war is terrifying. Why don’t you have any heroes?” I wasn’t looking for heroes. I was writing history through the stories of its unnoticed witnesses and participants. They had never been asked anything."
- Svetlana Alexievich

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2015/alexievich/lecture/?ref=thebrowser.com