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The Good Russian
In Search of a Nation's Soul
Brief Description
"This is a unique and necessary book. The Good Russian takes us inside wartime Russia, to a city that Jana Bakunina knows intimately. She brings us face to face with ordinary Russians, and also tells her own compelling personal story. Best of all, she writes very...
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Format: Paperback / softback
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The Good Russian
$3999
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A dual Russian-British citizen returns to her home town of Ekaterinburg in 2022 to ask why so many of her fellow Russians support Putin, and delves into her own family history of persecution by Stalin.
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Description
"This is a unique and necessary book. The Good Russian takes us inside wartime Russia, to a city that Jana Bakunina knows intimately. She brings us face to face with ordinary Russians, and also tells her own compelling personal story. Best of all, she writes very well." Simon Kuper, FT Journalist and author of the bestselling Chums
When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the writer Jana Bakunina, who has lived in the UK for 20 years, felt furious, ashamed, but most of all helpless. A year later she travelled to her home city of Yekaterinburg to see how ordinary Russians viewed the conflict - and whether the soul of her nation had truly been crushed.
Jana finds a booming city seemingly untouched by war. Reconnecting with old friends, she discovers people either happy to go along with a regime that has brought them stability, or else staying out of politics. Most painful of all, her once liberal father has channelled his personal disappointments into becoming a firm fan of Putin.
In the grand humane tradition of Russian dissident writers, Jana Bakunina grapples with a universal problem: what happens when a country you love becomes infected by nationalism? What hope is there when voices of conscience are silenced by dictatorship? And can Russians in exile still imagine a liberated future?
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780349136592
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 06 November 2025
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Little, Brown
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 22.0mm
Width: 153.0mm
Height: 234.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 208
About the Author
Jana Bakunina came to Britain in 1999 to study at Oxford University and after a career in finance, she has written on Russia for multiple publications including the Financial Times, New Statesman, The Standard, Sifted and the Spectator. Her fiction was shortlisted in the 2022 Bridport Prize, she was finalist for the 2022 London Independent Short Story Prize and in 2023 came second in the Olga Sinclair Prize.
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