Evan Gershkovich, US journalist imprisoned in Russia, will publish a memoir

NEW YORK - Mr Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was imprisoned in Russia for more than a year, is writing a memoir about his time in prison, his five years living in Moscow and Russia’s slide towards autocracy.

The memoir will be published in the US by Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House, with a tentative publication date in 2026.

Mr Paul Whitlatch, the editorial director for Crown, called the book “a testament to human resilience and a work of first-person reportage with few precedents in modern times”.

His statement continued: “During those 16 months in Russian prisons, he never stopped being a reporter, even as he faced a reality few of us can imagine.”

Mr Gershkovich was not available to comment, according to his agent, Mr Adam Eaglin of The Cheney Agency.

Mr Gershkovich, 32, was detained in March 2023 while on a reporting trip, becoming the first American journalist arrested in Russia on a spying charge since the end of the Cold War.

His detention marked an escalation in President Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on independent media in Russia.

The Russian authorities accused Mr Gershkovich, who had reported on Russia for the Journal since 2022, of being a spy for the US government.

The charges were vehemently denied by the White House, Mr Gershkovich and the Journal, which said he was an accredited journalist doing his job.

The US government designated him as “wrongfully detained”.

Mr Gershkovich was held in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison, where he spent 23 hours a day inside a small cell and communicated with his family and friends through letters.

After a closed-door trial in Moscow on the fabricated espionage charges, Mr Gershkovich was sentenced in July to 16 years in a high-security penal colony.

He was freed on Aug 1 as part of a sweeping prisoner swop that involved seven countries and led to the release of 15 people imprisoned in Russia.

Mr Gershkovich is the son of Soviet emigres, Mr Mikhail Gershkovich and Ms Ella Milman, who both left the country in 1979 for the US.

They raised their children in New Jersey, speaking Russian at home and instilling in them an appreciation for their Russian heritage.

Mr Gershkovich, who previously worked for The New York Times as a news assistant, moved to Russia in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times, later joining the Journal as a foreign correspondent.

In addition to Crown, the memoir has been sold to publishing house William Collins in Britain, and to Meulenhoff, a publisher in the Netherlands, according to Mr Eaglin.

“Evan is an extraordinary journalist and writer,” Mr Eaglin said. “He will offer a powerful new perspective on Russia and its relationship to the West in the 21st century.” NYTIMES