Masha Gessen

Author, journalist and 2017 Guggenheim Fellow

Masha Gessen is a journalist and the author of ten books of nonfiction, most recently The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, to be published in October 2017. She is also the author of the national bestseller The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (2012). She is a contributing opinion writer to The New York Times and a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, among other publications. She has received numerous awards, including a Carnegie Millennial Fellowship (2015-2016), a Nieman Fellowship (2003-2004), and the 2017 Overseas Press Club Award for Best Commentary. She serves as vice-president of PEN America.

While a Guggenheim Fellow, Gessen will be writing a book tentatively titled How to Destroy a Democracy: Five Lessons in Imagining the Worst and Some Notes on Resistance.

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