Best Seller
Esta tierra hermosa y maldita / This Cursed Beautiful Land
Paperback
$24.95
Available on Feb 16, 2027 | 432 Pages
«Un emocionante homenaje a la belleza y la importancia del periodismo a la antigua usanza, un thriller apasionante de “toma de rehenes” y una profunda reflexión acerca del dilema del ser humano entre la apatía y la esperanza bajo un régimen autoritario». —Patrick Radden Keefe
En 2023, mientras trabajaba como corresponsal en Moscú, Evan Gershkovich fue detenido por el temido FSB, heredero de la KGB, y acusado falsamente de espionaje, convirtiéndose en el primer periodista occidental en ser condenado por tal motivo desde la Guerra Fría. Tras 491 días en prisión, fue liberado en el mayor intercambio de prisioneros entre Rusia y Estados Unidos.
Gershkovich cuenta en este emocionante testimonio la historia de su arresto y su vida en prisión. Más allá del encierro, relata su relación con Rusia —país de origen de su familia—, los años en que vivió allí y el endurecimiento del régimen tras la invasión de Ucrania. El resultado son unas memorias periodísticas de altísimo voltaje que funcionan también como un imprescindible ensayo narrativo sobre la Rusia de Putin y la nueva Guerra Fría.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
The revelatory, much-anticipated memoir from the Wall Street Journal 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
“Propulsive . . . a taut thriller.”—Patrick Radden Keefe, #1 New York Times bestselling author of London Falling
In 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.
Five 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 The Moscow Times and developing a circle of deep friendships with Russian peers, all striving to make their way in perilous times.
Western 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.
After 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.
In 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, This Cursed Beautiful Land is an extraordinary, deeply reported chronicle of a misunderstood people and their land—marked at once by stunning beauty and a haunting history.
En 2023, mientras trabajaba como corresponsal en Moscú, Evan Gershkovich fue detenido por el temido FSB, heredero de la KGB, y acusado falsamente de espionaje, convirtiéndose en el primer periodista occidental en ser condenado por tal motivo desde la Guerra Fría. Tras 491 días en prisión, fue liberado en el mayor intercambio de prisioneros entre Rusia y Estados Unidos.
Gershkovich cuenta en este emocionante testimonio la historia de su arresto y su vida en prisión. Más allá del encierro, relata su relación con Rusia —país de origen de su familia—, los años en que vivió allí y el endurecimiento del régimen tras la invasión de Ucrania. El resultado son unas memorias periodísticas de altísimo voltaje que funcionan también como un imprescindible ensayo narrativo sobre la Rusia de Putin y la nueva Guerra Fría.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
The revelatory, much-anticipated memoir from the Wall Street Journal 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
“Propulsive . . . a taut thriller.”—Patrick Radden Keefe, #1 New York Times bestselling author of London Falling
In 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.
Five 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 The Moscow Times and developing a circle of deep friendships with Russian peers, all striving to make their way in perilous times.
Western 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.
After 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.
In 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, This Cursed Beautiful Land is an extraordinary, deeply reported chronicle of a misunderstood people and their land—marked at once by stunning beauty and a haunting history.
