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.
