NEWSWATCH: “‘Anti-travelogue’ on Putin’s Russia wins £10,000 Ondaatje prize. Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev takes prize honouring writers who best ‘evoke the spirit of a place” – The Guardian
… Pomerantsev said he had been struck by the ‘state-reinforced psychology of the new Russia, the insistence that all identities are mutable, that nothing is true and everything is possible.’ Born in Ukraine and now living in London, Pomerantsev has worked as a journalist, film-maker and as a consultant for the EU and World Bank. * * * Judge and BBC journalist Kate Adie called Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible ‘an exuberant exposure of greed and corruption in modern Russia. The grotesque pursuit of money is conveyed in glittering, trenchant prose, as is a country where gangsters rule and the river of tainted money flows easily to London.’ Poet and writer Moniza Alvi, also judging, called it ‘an essential as well as a captivating read – a warning, and, implicitly, a prayer for our times.’ The judging panel was completed by Mark Lawson, who said it was ‘a sort of anti-travelogue, making the reader desperately keen never to go near the places described … Pomerantsev’s storytelling is funny, frightening, exhilarating.’
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