{"product_id":"this-cursed-beautiful-land-a-russian-american-story","title":"This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian-American Story","description":"\n\u003ctable align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\"\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd class=\"productDetailSmallElements\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eBiographical Note\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eEvan Gershkovich\u003c\/b\u003e is a foreign correspondent for \n\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal \u003c\/i\u003ebased in Berlin. Born in New Jersey to Soviet émigrés, he lived in Russia for over five years before his 2023 arrest and subsequent sixteen-month imprisonment on false espionage charges. His writing has also appeared in \n\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \n\u003ci\u003eThe Economist\u003c\/i\u003e and \n\u003ci\u003eForeign Policy\u003c\/i\u003e, and he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2025 as part of an investigative team for \n\u003ci\u003eThe Journal\u003c\/i\u003e. He is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A rich and suspenseful saga of Russia's rapid descent into autocracy, told in intimate, often chilling detail by an American reporter who saw it from the inside--as a prisoner falsely arrested for espionage by Putin's FSB. I could be wrong, but I think I hear Solzhenitsyn applauding in his grave.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Erik Larson, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e-bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Demon of Unrest\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Sometimes funny, frequently harrowing, always illuminating, \n\u003ci\u003eThis Cursed Beautiful Land\u003c\/i\u003e is more than the story of a news reporter who became the news. Gershkovich lives in two worlds at once--American and Russian, observer and protagonist, subject and object--while an autocratic regime tries to reduce him to a trading chip. This book is a testament to the humanity he refused to surrender, and a prison memoir that doubles as a love letter, not to the dictatorship that imprisoned him, but to the Russia underneath: its language, landscape, literature, and people.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eAll the Light We Cannot See\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Propulsive and astutely observed, \n\u003ci\u003eThis Cursed Beautiful Land\u003c\/i\u003e is much more than a captivity memoir by a young man who found himself at the center of a geopolitical storm. It is a rousing tribute to the beauty and importance of old-fashioned journalism, a taut thriller of high stakes 'hostage diplomacy, ' and a poignant meditation on the human struggle between hope and apathy under authoritarian rule.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Patrick Radden Keefe, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e-bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eLondon Falling\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"In this memoir that reads like a thriller, Evan Gershkovich brings all his reportorial skills to bear as he chronicles his journey through a Kafka-esque justice system. As a pawn in the new Great Game of prisoner swapping, the journalist became the news. Now Evan tells the private story behind his public ordeal, in vivid detail and with a profound understanding of Russian history and prison's effect on individual lives.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Radhika Jones, writer and former editor, \u003ci\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher Marketing\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe revelatory, much-anticipated memoir from the \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e reporter who was wrongly imprisoned in Putin's Russia for more than a year--a glimpse inside the perils and contradictions of a country in the midst of autocracy\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\"Propulsive . . . a taut thriller.\"--Patrick Radden Keefe, #1 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestselling author of \u003ci\u003eLondon Falling\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn March 2023, a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, Evan Gershkovich met with a union boss connected with a Russian tank factory. As the journalist sat with his source in an empty restaurant in an industrial city 900 miles east of Moscow, a squad of masked agents charged in, blindfolded Evan, and dragged him into an unmarked van. The agents were from the FSB, Putin's powerful security service, and the successor to the Soviet-era KGB. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFive years earlier, Evan had arrived in Moscow to jumpstart his journalism career. His parents had left the Soviet Union in the 1970s, forging a middle-class life in New Jersey, where Evan grew up on Soviet-era cartoons and weekend trips to Brighton Beach. In Moscow, Evan dove into life--unpacking politics for readers of \n\u003ci\u003eThe Moscow Times\u003c\/i\u003e and developing a circle of deep friendships with Russian peers, all striving to make their way in perilous times. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWestern journalists had long felt insulated from the dangers their Russian counterparts experienced. But war, it seemed, had changed the rules. Interrogated for hours after his arrest, Evan was told he was being charged with spying and thrown in Moscow's notorious Lefortovo prison--a pawn in a geopolitical chess match. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAfter his world suddenly shrunk to a tiny, cement-walled cell, Evan did something remarkable: he continued reporting. For the next sixteen months, he documented a life in Russia that few Westerners will ever experience: its sprawling prison system, with its own vocabulary and customs--and surprising pockets of humanity. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn writing by turns riveting and humorous, Evan brings readers inside the events leading to his arrest, his nearly 500 days in Russian prisons, and the blockbuster, multi-country prisoner swap that freed him. More than a prison memoir, \n\u003ci\u003eThis Cursed Beautiful Land\u003c\/i\u003e is an extraordinary, deeply reported chronicle of a misunderstood people and their land--marked at once by stunning beauty and a haunting history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n","brand":"Crown Publishing Group (NY)","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51496185495830,"sku":"9798217087266","price":40.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0857\/9910\/8886\/files\/9798217087266.jpg?v=1783056997","url":"https:\/\/lusper.myshopify.com\/products\/this-cursed-beautiful-land-a-russian-american-story","provider":"Lusperbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}