The program item appeared at short notice during the last day of the fair.
Svetlana Aleksijevich spoke with Johan Öberg, translator and former cultural councilor at the Swedish Embassy in Moscow and was translated into English by Vadim Belenky.
The Nobel laureate gave his view on the situation in his home country.
- There is an almost military situation here now.
But we have discovered unexpected things with the people and I have fallen in love with the people now!
I think people all over the world admire the people of Minsk.
We did not expect this to happen, she said.
"Women are smarter than men"
Alexeyevich also highlighted the role of women in the protests: women who managed to free men arrested by security forces and distributed flowers to masked men.
Some demonstrations in the country have consisted entirely of women.
- Women are smarter than men.
Several of them are in their 50s, 60s.
Women of all ages are seen protesting.
Those who take to the streets are heroes.
We have not won yet, but they are heroes.
"We did not know what freedom was"
Although it is a long way to go for the opposition, Svetlana Alexievitch believes that today's protests have a better chance of achieving results than the previous ones.
- I think that people today are more prepared for freedom than we were in the 90s when we took to the streets.
We did not know what freedom was!
We had a mythical image of freedom and thought it was around the corner.
Freedom is a long, long journey, we know that now.
Today, people know more about this.
They have traveled, they have access to information and discuss this with friends in other countries.
They have knowledge, we only had one dream.