Masha Gessen receives the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2019. The Russian-US-American journalist and writer is honored for her non-fiction book "The future is history - how Russia won and lost its freedom", the city announced on Wednesday.
Gessen describes in her book Russia from the eighties to today. Their basic question is: how could it happen that a society that had broken free and emancipated is now suffering from repression? For her work Gessen, who writes among other things, also for the "New Yorker", spoke with four people of the generation 1984.
"More and more frequently, the fire of intolerance flares up, more and more often accompanied by violence, and in some places a conflagration is created that threatens to destroy a social dynamic based on respect and freedom." In these difficult times, the dedication, the urgency, the powerfully engaged intelligence, Masha Gessen meets us as a writer and as a citizen, "was the reasoning of the five-member jury. The award will be presented to Masha Gessen on the occasion of the opening of the Leipzig Book Fair on March 20, 2019 at the Gewandhaus.
The prize, endowed with 20,000 euros and awarded since 1994, is one of the most important literary awards in Germany. Last year Norwegian author Åsne Seierstad received the award for her Breivik novel "One of Us".