THE WORK OF SVETLANA ALEXIEVICH IN THE CONTEXT OF THE HISTORY OF DOCUMENTARY FICTIONAL PROSE (“BOYS IN ZINC”)

The research focuses on the specifics of a famous writer’s documentary fictional prose. First, it is important to understand, what the notion of “documentary literature” means and how it changed in the history of literature, and when, under what circumstances and for what reasons “documentary fiction” appears. Then, it is as important to identify the role and functions of the author, or the author’s voice as the genre’s specifics. The article analyses the interaction of the fictional and the documentary elements in “Boys in Zinc” by Svetlana Alexievich and shows that her work is a unique example of using the “living human voice” as a document of time