The second conversation from the Literary Talks program on November 14 will be with renowned Russian journalist and writer Mikhail Zygar. It will begin at 8:00 p.m. at the National Gallery – the Palace, and its moderator will be poet and journalist Dimiter Kenarov.
Mikhail Zygar is a Russian journalist, writer, and director. He was a military correspondent for the newspaper Kommersant’, and he covered the military conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Uzbekistan, as well as the genocide in Darfur and the revolution in Kyrgyzstan. He is a former deputy editor-in-chief of Russky Newsweek and former editor-in-chief of the independent Russian news TV channel Dozhd’ since its founding. Zygar also makes documentary films. Today he is a columnist for Der Spiegel and the New York Times. His books War and Punishment; All Are Free: Russia One Second Before Putin, or What Went Wrong, How and Why; and The Empire Must Die can all currently be found in Bulgarian (from Janet 45, with translation by Zdravka Petrova).
In 2014, he received the prestigious international CPJ International Press Freedom Award. The award is given to journalists around the world who show courage by standing up for media freedom under an actual risk of attacks, threats, and imprisonment.
Immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he created a petition against the invasion, signed by the most prominent Russian writers, artists, and scientists. Mikhail Zygar left Russia soon after the start of the war.
Since 2022, he has carried out a series of interviews on his YouTube channel with people like Francis Fukuyama, Yuval Noah Harari, Steven Pinker, John Malkovich, Timothy Snyder, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Mikhail Gorbachev, and more. In 2022, Zygar managed to arrange the only interview for several Russian independent journalists with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
His biography as a journalist is directly connected with his work as a writer. The conversation will inevitably discuss current political and international events, wars, and what it is to be a journalist in some of the biggest hotspots in the world, but the main topic will of course be the books of Mikhail Zygar, with writing, the writing process, research, and the historical and documentary genre being discussed.
Free entry / Seating is limited and people will be admitted until all places are filled
With Bulgarian translation
The visual design is the work of Kostadin Kokalanov of Studio FRANK
The Literary Talks program is organized by the Read Sofia foundation
“Literary Talks” is made possible with the support of the Ministry of Culture and the Capital Municipality. Literary Talks Fall 2024 has been carried out in partnership with the Sofia University Culture Center and with the support of the America for Bulgaria foundation.