Masha Gessen

On 21 February 2012, five members of an obscure feminist post-punk collective called Pussy Riot staged a performance in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Dressed in their trademark brightly coloured dresses and balaclavas, the women performed their song 'Punk Prayer - Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!' in front of the altar. The performance lasted only 40 seconds but...

The Future is History by Masha Gessen is a riveting exploration of modern Russia’s turbulent journey from the fall of the Soviet Union to its current iteration as a formidable, authoritarian state. Spanning several decades, the book meticulously chronicles the lives of four Russians, who were born during the collapse of the USSR, at a time brimming with hopes of...

'A luminous study' Luke Harding, Guardian'Courageous and shocking' Katy Guest, Books of the Year, Independent on SundayHow did a small-minded, low-level KGB operative come to control the world's largest country and, in an astonishingly short time, destroy years of progress, making Russia once more a threat to her own people and to the world?Masha Gessen shows that when Vladimir Putin,...

In Surviving Autocracy, Masha Gessen offers a powerful and insightful analysis of America's political landscape during the Trump presidency. Through a compelling narrative that draws from her own experiences growing up in the Soviet Union and her decades-long career covering authoritarian regimes in Russia, Gessen meticulously delineates the erosion of democratic norms in the United States. She constructs a cohesive...

Masha Gessen's last memory of Russia was the crowd of red-eyed relatives gathered at the airport in Moscow in 1981 to wave goodbye forever to her fourteen-year-old self, her brother and her parents. Unwilling to have their children grow up bearing the weight of the same anti-Semitism that they and their parents had, Masha's mother and father were emigrating to...

The Man Without a Face, written by the distinguished journalist and author Masha Gessen, delves deeply into the enigmatic rise of Vladimir Putin, a figure who emerged from relative obscurity to become one of the most powerful and controversial leaders of our time. The book offers a comprehensive and chilling portrait of Putin's ascent to the pinnacle of Russian politics,...