Masha Gessen, Moscow-Based Journalist-- Reading

Gessen is the author of the new book, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (2012). Drawing on previously untapped sources, she presents a portrait of a ruthless politician underestimated by friends and enemies alike, who has dismantled his nation’s democratic and free market reforms in order to establish himself as totalitarian leader of the “new Russia.” The author of six previous books on Russia, Gessen has written for the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Granta and Slate.