Over the past 15 years, journalist Elena Kostyuchenko has worked as a correspondent for Novaya Gazeta, one of the last independent Russian newspapers. She is known for her fearless reporting on the ordinary people of Russia who have been put in extraordinary circumstances. I Love Russia, translated by Bela Shayevich and Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse, is a stunning collection of personal essays and past journalistic work covering life in the country under President Vladimir Putin’s rule. Throughout her career, Kostyuchenko has gone to great lengths for her work. She has been assaulted, arrested, and, she writes, nearly killed in retribution for criticizing her country. Her dispatches from the frontlines of the war in Ukraine offer a shocking look at its atrocities. She writes about a mental facility mishandling its patients’ diagnoses in a heartbreaking story of government mismanagement. In I Love Russia, Kostyuchenko, who is now living in exile, paints a portrait of a country falling ever deeper into fascism. She says this vital read will be the last book she ever publishes. —Shannon Carlin
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