Maria Stepanova, an author of Russian-Jewish descent, has been honoured with the prestigious Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding in the year 2023.
Stepanova was recognised in Leipzig this week for her poetry collection titled Girls without Clothes.
The award ceremony took place on April 25, marking the opening of the 30th Leipzig Book Fair.
The prize has been granted since 1994 with the aim of promoting reconciliation in Europe, and it was previously won by another Russian exile, Masha Gessen, a journalist residing in the United States, for her book The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia in 2019.
Stepanova, a Russian-Jewish poet, novelist, and journalist born in Moscow in 1972, has been a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin’s administration.
