
Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin's Russia
by Joshua Yaffa
Award History
| Award | Year | Status | Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orwell Prize for Political Writing | 2021 | Winner | “Between Two Fires by Joshua Yaffa won the Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2021.” |
About This Book
Through intimate portraits of a diverse cast of Russians—a doctor, a filmmaker, a conservationist, a television executive, an activist—New Yorker correspondent Joshua Yaffa explores the moral compromises required to operate within Putin's Russia. A profound meditation on complicity, survival, and the human capacity for self-justification under authoritarian governance.
About the Author
Joshua Yaffa is an American journalist and a staff writer at The New Yorker based in Moscow. He has reported from Russia and Eastern Europe for more than a decade and is considered one of the foremost American journalists covering the former Soviet Union. He studied at Stanford University and the London School of Economics. Read more →
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