“Irreverent, urgent, and illuminating, this bold account offers American readers an invaluable window into contemporary Russia. It’s a winner.” —Publishers Weekly
Picking up where Riot Days left off, Maria (Masha) Alyokhina takes us through her activist experiences between 2014 to 2022. In vivid, diary-like vignettes, we follow her as she goes in and out of Russian prisons, continually dodges police violence, protests at the Sochi Olympics, flies to Kyiv to stand in solidarity with Ukraine, defends the high-level dissident Alexi Navalny, drops banners at Trump Tower, and—in 2022—flees from Russia in disguise to escape a new prison sentence.
Spanning settings from Moscow to London to New York to Harvard, Political Girl has an artistic sensibility, a punk ethos, a deep moral clarity, and an inimitably dry Russian wit. It portrays not only Masha’s political activities but also her personal arc: the friends she makes in prison, the woman she falls in love with, her bond with her young son Filip, and her deep passion for art and history. As Trump attempts to bring Putin-style authoritarianism to the U.S., Masha's message to Americans is one of solidarity and hope.
About Maria Alyokhina
Maria is a member of Pussy Riot, an infamous feminist art collective that has been recognized with the 2012 LennonOno Grant for Peace, the Hannah Arendt Prize in 2014, and the Woody Guthrie Prize in 2023, which honours the spirit of resistance through music, literature, dance, and art. In 2024 The Polygon mounted Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot's Russia, the first survey exhibition of their work. She is the author of two books Riot Days and Political Girl.
Hardcover
480 pages