Russian Journalist, Author of the book 'The Man Without a Face'

Masha Gessen | Biography

Masha Gessen identifies themselves as a non-binary gender

• By Shruti Pokharel
• Update : December 06, 2021

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Masha Gessen is a journalist known for their 2011 book 'The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin.'

Who is Masha Gessen?

Masha Gessen is a Russian-American journalist known for being an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and former US President Donald Trump. Masha goes by they/them pronouns. They are also Russia's leading LGBT rights activist.

Early Life and Education

Maria Alexandrovna Gessen was born on 13 January 1967 in Moscow, Russia, in a Jewish family, to Yelena and Alexander Gessen. Gessen's paternal grandmother Ester Goldberg was of Polish heritage. She emigrated from Poland to Moscow in 1940. Gessen's maternal grandmother Russia Solodovnik was a native Russian. She was an intellect that worked for the Stalinist government as a censor until she got fired during an antisemitic purge. Samuil, Gessen's maternal grandfather, was a communist. He died during World War II.

Gessen moved to the United States with their family in 1981 as a teenager. In 1991, they moved back to Russia and began their career as a journalist, and made a name for themselves as a revolutionary activist for LGBTQ rights and a science journalist. Gessen holds both American and Russian citizenship. 

Career

After returning to Moscow in 1991, Gessen tried to get a bureau job but did not get it as they come from a queer (LGBT) community. That led them to become magazine journalist. As a magazine journalist, Gessen got much more freedom and financial stability than any bureau job.

Gessen covered the news of the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the transition in the former Soviet Union throughout the 1990s. They worked for The New Republic as a special correspondent. Gessen also wrote for a few other magazines. 

From 1994, they started writing both in Russian and English. They were the founder of post-Soviet Russia's first weekly magazine called Itogi. Until 2001, they served as the chief correspondent of the magazine. In 2001, Gessen became the head of US News and World Report's Moscow bureau. They edited many Russian magazines, including the very popular monthly magazine Vokrug Sveta. Gessen got fired from the magazine after they refused to send a reporter to cover the news related to President Putin's piloting.

Gessen wrote a biography of President Putin in 2011 'The Man Without a Face.' It was an international bestseller. In 2013, Gessen returned to New York City. In 2014, they began to contribute to The New Yorker magazine and became a staff writer in 2017. 

Books

Gessen is the author of eleven books. One of their first books was 'The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin,' published in March 2012. It was translated into 20 languages. In the book, Gessen wrote about Putin's rise to power and a summary of his politics. The New York Review, the Telegraph, and The Guardian praised this book as courageous, luminous, and eloquent. 

Gessen was also highly appreciated for their 2014 published book 'Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot.' The Telegraph wrote, "even readers who do not share Gessen's esteem for Pussy Riot as artists will be convinced of their courage." Booklist called it "pricky, frank, precise, and sharply witty." The Washington Post described the book as "excellent," and The New York Times called it "urgent" and "damning." 

The book 'The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy' published in April 2015, is Gessen's other popular book. It investigates the background of two brothers Dzhokar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was involved in the Boston Marathon bombings.

Their book 'The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,' won the 2017 National Book Award. 

Their recent book 'Surviving Autocracy' published in 2020, is an international bestseller.

Personal Life

Gessen is married to Darya Oreshkina. They were previously married to Svetlana Generalova, who they met in the LGBT movement in Moscow in 2004. The couple divorced a few years later.

Gessen got married to Darya in December 2013 in the US. They left Russia in 2013 after politicians started talking about taking children from same-sex parents. Gessen and their wife have three children. Their eldest son, Vova, was born in Russia in 1997. Gessen adopted him from a Russian Orphanage for the children of HIV-positive women. Their second child, Yolka, is a girl. She was born in Gessen in 2001 in the US. Their youngest child was born in February 2012.

Net Worth

No sources are available about Gessen's net worth.