Maria Alyokhina and Eric J. Breitenbach of Pussy Riot present an evening of live reading, music, and discussion.
Masha will read from her new book Political Girl, continuing the story begun in Riot Days, tracing years of activism, arrests, resistance, and survival inside Putin’s Russia. The reading will be accompanied by a live improvised score by Eric, responding to the text in real time.

The event will include a Q and A, followed by a book signing. Copies of Political Girl and Riot Days will be available.

An intimate spoken word and live music performance rooted in political resistance, art, and collective action.

About the Book
Political Girl: Life and Fate in Russia By Maria Alyokhina
Picking up where Riot Days left off, Maria (Masha) Alyokhina takes us through her activist experiences between 2014 to 2022. In vivid, diary-like vignettes, we follow her as she goes in and out of Russian prisons, continually dodges police violence, protests at the Sochi Olympics, flies to Kyiv to stand in solidarity with Ukraine, defends the high-level dissident Alexi Navalny, drops banners at Trump Tower, and—in 2022—flees from Russia in disguise to escape a new prison sentence.

Spanning settings from Moscow to London to New York to Harvard, Political Girl has an artistic sensibility, a punk ethos, a deep moral clarity, and an inimitably dry Russian wit. It portrays not only Masha’s political activities but also her personal arc: the friends she makes in prison, the woman she falls in love with, her bond with her young son Filip, and her deep passion for art and history. As Trump attempts to bring Putin-style authoritarianism to the U.S., Masha’s message to Americans is one of solidarity and hope.