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Masha Gessen
Masha Gessen (Russian: Мария Александровна (Маша) Гессен, romanized: Mariya Aleksandrovna (Masha) Gessen) is a Russian and American journalist, author, and translator who has written extensively on LGBT rights.
Gessen writes primarily in English but also in Russian. In addition to authoring several nonfiction books, Gessen has contributed to The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, New Statesman, Granta, Slate, Vanity Fair, Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, and U.S. News & World Report.
They have been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 2017 and an opinion columnist at The New York Times, under the byline M. Gessen, since May 2024.
Gessen was born into a Jewish family in Moscow to Alexander and Yelena Gessen.
Gessen's paternal grandmother Ester Goldberg, the daughter of a socialist mother and a Zionist father, was born in Białystok, Poland, in 1923 and emigrated to Moscow in 1940. Ester's father Jakub Goldberg died in 1943, either in the Białystok Ghetto or a concentration camp. As a Judenrat member he was forced to assist the Nazis by, among other things, providing lists of Jews for deportation.
Gessen's maternal grandmother, Rosalia (Ruzya) Solodovnik, worked as a censor for the Stalinist government until she was fired during an antisemitic purge. Gessen's maternal grandfather Samuil was a committed Bolshevik who died during World War II, leaving Ruzya to raise Yelena alone.
In 1981, when Gessen was a teenager, their family moved via the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program to the United States. As an adult in 1996, Gessen moved to Moscow, where they worked as a journalist. They hold both Russian and US citizenship. Their brothers are Keith, Daniel, and Philip Gessen.
Gessen was on the board of directors of the Moscow-based LGBT rights organization Triangle between 1993 and 1998 and has led gay rights demonstrations in Moscow.
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Masha Gessen
Masha Gessen (Russian: Мария Александровна (Маша) Гессен, romanized: Mariya Aleksandrovna (Masha) Gessen) is a Russian and American journalist, author, and translator who has written extensively on LGBT rights.
Gessen writes primarily in English but also in Russian. In addition to authoring several nonfiction books, Gessen has contributed to The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, New Statesman, Granta, Slate, Vanity Fair, Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, and U.S. News & World Report.
They have been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 2017 and an opinion columnist at The New York Times, under the byline M. Gessen, since May 2024.
Gessen was born into a Jewish family in Moscow to Alexander and Yelena Gessen.
Gessen's paternal grandmother Ester Goldberg, the daughter of a socialist mother and a Zionist father, was born in Białystok, Poland, in 1923 and emigrated to Moscow in 1940. Ester's father Jakub Goldberg died in 1943, either in the Białystok Ghetto or a concentration camp. As a Judenrat member he was forced to assist the Nazis by, among other things, providing lists of Jews for deportation.
Gessen's maternal grandmother, Rosalia (Ruzya) Solodovnik, worked as a censor for the Stalinist government until she was fired during an antisemitic purge. Gessen's maternal grandfather Samuil was a committed Bolshevik who died during World War II, leaving Ruzya to raise Yelena alone.
In 1981, when Gessen was a teenager, their family moved via the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program to the United States. As an adult in 1996, Gessen moved to Moscow, where they worked as a journalist. They hold both Russian and US citizenship. Their brothers are Keith, Daniel, and Philip Gessen.
Gessen was on the board of directors of the Moscow-based LGBT rights organization Triangle between 1993 and 1998 and has led gay rights demonstrations in Moscow.
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