Masha Gessen

Russian-American journalist and author — staff writer at The New Yorker — author of The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin and The Future Is History — a leading analyst of Russian politics and authoritarianism.

Creates the most penetrating English-language journalism on Putin's Russia — Gessen's The Man Without a Face was the first serious biography of Putin published in the West and established the analytical framework (KGB culture as defining influence) that most subsequent analysis has followed.