Description
The deeply researched and partly imagined story of the fearless, internationally recognized journalist who was assassinated for believing that ‘words can save lives.’
Say No to Fear, part of the They Said No series of histories, tells the story of Anna Politkovskaya’s courageous life narrated from the perspective of her longtime mentor and friend, the dissident writer Vassily Pachoutinsev. From their first meeting when she was a young literature student writing about poet Marina Tsvetaeva to her rise as an internationally recognized journalist, through Vassily we see Anna develop from junior reporter, to covering social issues after the fall of the Soviet Union, to becoming a fearless defender of human rights. Throughout the author brings the history to life by including key conversations that might have happened between them at pivotal moments in Politkovskaya’s life.
A scathing critic of the second Chechen war, Politkovskaya published most of her political work while working at the Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper at the forefront of the fight for free expression in Russia. For their outspokenness several members of its staff were murdered, presumably silenced by Russia's Vladimir Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Even after a poisoning attack and a mock execution, Politkovskaya persisted, adamant in her fight for her children's and grandchildren’s world, critiquing the situation in Chechnya and Putin until her assassination in 2006.
The narrator, Pachoutinsev, explains how her legacy lives on, inspiring those in pursuit of justice and the truth both in Russia and abroad.
About the Author
PIERRE-LOUIS FORT is a professor at CY Cergy Paris University. He is a specialist in 20th and 21st century French literature, and is also the author of essays including Critique et Littérature (Paris, 2008) and Simone de Beauvoir (Paris, 2016). He edited this book, which was published in 2022 in France as Cahier de L'Herne Annie Ernaux.
The author of some twenty works of fiction and memoir, ANNIE ERNAUX is considered by many to be France’s most important writer. In 2022, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She has also won the Prix Renaudot for A Man's Place and the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her body of work. More recently she received the International Strega Prize, the Prix Formentor, the French-American Translation Prize, and the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for The Years, which was also shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. Her other works include Exteriors, A Girl's Story, A Woman's Story, The Possession, Simple Passion, Happening, I Remain in Darkness, Shame, A Frozen Woman, A Man's Place, and The Young Man.
ROS SCHWARTZ has translated a wide range of Francophone literary fiction, memoirs, nonfiction and literature for children and young adults. In 2009 she was awarded the distinction of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her services to literature. SOPHIE LEWIS is a translator and an editor working from French and Portuguese, and her translations have been shortlisted for the Scott Moncrieff and Republic of Consciousness prizes, and longlisted for the International Booker Prize. FRANK WYNNE is an Irish writer and translator and he chaired the jury of the 2022 Booker International. He has won numerous awards, and most recently his translation of The Art of Losing won the 2022 Dublin Literary Award. ALISON L. STRAYER is a Canadian writer and translator. Her work has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Literature and for Translation, the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal, and the Prix littéraire France-Québec. Translator EMMA RAMADAN is based in Providence, Rhode Island, where she co-owns Riffraff Bookstore and Bar. She's the recipient of an NEA fellowship, a Fulbright grant, and the 2018 Albertine Prize. DAN SIMON is founder and publisher of Seven Stories Press. His prior translations from the French include Van Gogh: Self Portraits, with accompanying letters from Vincent to his brother Theo by Pascal Bonafoux, and, with Carol Volk, Post-Impressionists by Guy Cogeval.
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