The Illegals

‘The author must be a great listener and a careful interviewer to win the trust and confidence of all these individuals.’ - Svetlana Savranskaya‘Shaun Walker has not only done the hard and necessary work of reporting from Russia and Ukraine, he has also reflected, with remarkable historical and literary sensibility, on what it means when a great power gives up on its own future and decides instead to market its past.’ - Timothy Snyder, Yale University‘The best history of the ideologies and politics behind the headlines … Walker’s meticulous documentation of the annexation of Crimea and the subsequent occupation of Ukraine makes this exemplary political history, but The Long Hangover will be remembered, and re-read, as a history of memory.’ - Linda Kinstler‘Some of the finest journalism of the post-Soviet era. Highly recommended.’ - Library Journal, starred review

Shaun Walker is a foreign correspondent for the Guardian, currently covering central and eastern Europe. He was the Guardian’s Moscow Correspondent between 2013 and 2018, prior to which he spent six years as Moscow Correspondent for the Independent. He studied Russian and Soviet History at Oxford University.