This Cursed Beautiful Land

‘Propulsive and astutely observed, This Cursed Beautiful Land is much more than a captivity memoir by a young man who found himself at the center of a geopolitical storm. It is a rousing tribute to the beauty and importance of old-fashioned journalism, a taut thriller of high stakes ‘hostage diplomacy,’ and a poignant meditation on the human struggle between hope and apathy under authoritarian rule’ Patrick Radden Keefe, bestselling author of London Falling
‘Offers a window onto the country’s wartime soul… Prison, it shows, is still a barred window onto the truths of an inescapable country… This tale of punishment without a crime turns into an offbeat love story. It also has some unassuming heroes—not the overseas diplomats and politicians who succeed in freeing Mr Gershkovich, but the Russian lawyers who bravely conduct his futile defence. The futility is what makes it heroic’
Economist
‘Beautiful writing… a phenomenal book’
Jon Stewart
‘A deeply reported, enthralling memoir’
New York Times
‘A chilling, captivating and timely parable: how power is abused, expression chilled and freedom extinguished in our lawless world’ Philippe Sands, author of East West Street
‘Sometimes funny, frequently harrowing, always illuminating … this book is a testament to the humanity he refused to surrender, and a prison memoir that doubles as a love letter, not to the dictatorship that imprisoned him, but to the Russia underneath: its language, landscape, literature, and people’ Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All the Light We Cannot See
‘I think I hear Solzhenitsyn applauding in his grave’ Erik Larson, bestselling author of The Demon of Unrest
‘Gershkovich’s memoir is proof that even during that harrowing time, his reporter’s eye remained as sharp as ever’ New York Times, ‘The Nonfiction Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026’

Evan Gershkovich is a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal based in Berlin. Born in New Jersey to Soviet emigres, he lived in Russia for over five years before his 2023 arrest and subsequent sixteen-month imprisonment on false espionage charges. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Economist, and Foreign Policy. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2025 as part of an investigative team for The Journal and is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship.

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