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Maria Alyokhina (Pussy Riot) in Conversation with James Ball

Dystopia is Not the Future

Portrait of Maria Alyokhina against a background of a map

Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina joins award-winning investigative journalist James Ball to discuss her memoir Political Girl and her fight against authoritarianism.

Political Girl begins in 2014 - the year when Russia invaded Crimea, Putin secured his presidential re-election and several political prisoners, including Alyokhina, are amnestied and released early from prison. After spending two years in a penal colony for performing the punk prayer ‘Virgin Mary, Banish Putin’ at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, she found her country in an event more repressive regime than before.

What can you do, she asks, when your country has been seized by all-powerful men who are waging war against another country and their own citizens? In an inspiring discussion on resistance and grassroots opposition, Alyokhina discusses her extraordinary journey of determination, courage and the cost of speaking truth to power.

Duration: 1h30m

Age recommendation: 16+

Content warning: This talk may include references to political repression, imprisonment, state violence, the war in Ukraine, homophobia.

Presented In partnership with Allen Lane.

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£15
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Panellists

Maria Alyokhina is a political activist, artist and member of Pussy Riot collective. Her first book Riot Days was highly acclaimed and translated into many languages. 

James Ball is an award winning journalist, broadcaster and author, fellow of the think-tank Demos, and the political editor of The New European. He has worked as the global editor of TBIJ, a special correspondent at BuzzFeed UK and special projects editor at The Guardian, where he played a key role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the NSA leaks by Edward Snowden, as well as the offshore leaks, HSBC Files, Reading the Riots and Keep it in the Ground projects. James is the author of multiple books, including Post-Truth: How Bullshit Conquered The World and The Tangled Web We Weave: Inside The Shadow System That Shapes the Internet. His most recent book, The Other Pandemic: How Qanon Contaminated The World, was published by Bloomsbury in July 2023.

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