Mikhail Shishkin (born in 1961) is the only writer to have won all three of the most prestigious literary prizes: the Russian Booker for his novel The Taking of Izmail (2000), the National Bestseller for Venus' Hair (2005), and the Big Book for Letter Writer (2010). His books have been translated into 30 languages and have won prizes in Italy, France, Germany, and Switzerland. In his essays, which are published in leading global media outlets (WSJ, The Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais, FAZ, etc.), the writer opposes the Putin regime. In his book My Russia: War or Peace, he explains Russia and the aggression against Ukraine to Western readers through the country's history and the history of his family. In his new book My: Essays on Russian Literature (2024), Shishkin gives a new perspective on Russian writers through the prism of war.