Answer
Svetlana Alexievich spent her childhood in Belarus, which was part of the Soviet Union at the time. She was born in 1948 in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk, which is now in Ukraine. Alexievich's father was a Belarusian soldier and her mother was a Ukrainian teacher. Alexievich's family moved to Belarus when she was a child, and she grew up in the city of Minsk.