U.S. in 2001. Their third child, a son, was born in February 2012. Gessen tested positive for the BRCA mutation that is correlated with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy in 2005. Awards 2005: National Jewish Book Award for Ester and Ruzya: How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler's War and Stalin's Peace 2012: Stora Journalistpriset (Swedish Grand Prize for Journalism), Guest of Honor 2013: Liberty Media Corporation, Media for Liberty award for their article "The Wrath of Putin," published in the April 2012 edition of Vanity Fair 2015: University of Michigan Wallenberg Medal, 24th recipient 2017: National Book Award for Nonfiction for The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia 2018: Hitchens Prize Summaries of select works The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin In The Man Without a Face, Gessen offers an account of Putin's rise to power and summary of recent Russian politics. The book was published on 1 March 2012 and translated into 20 languages. The New York Review of Books described the book as written in "beautifully clear and eloquent English," and stated that it was "at heart a description of th[e] secret police milieu" from which Putin originated and was "also very good at evoking…the culture and atmosphere within which [Putin] was raised, and the values he came to espouse." The Guardian called the book "luminous"; the Telegraph called it "courageous". CIA officer John Ehrman's review stated: "As a biography it is satisfactory, but no more than that" and "little of what Gessen has to say is new." He described the images as ". . effective as anti-Putin propaganda". Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot A.D. Miller wrote in the Telegraph that "even readers who do not share Gessen's esteem for Pussy Riot as artists will be convinced of their courage." Miller described Gessen as "the right person to tell this story" and said their journalistic approach was "scrupulous and sensitive". Booklist described the book as "prickly, frank, precise, and sharply witty." The New York Times called it "urgent" and "damning." The Washington Post called the book an "excellent" portrait of Pussy Riot and said that "Gessen gives a particularly brilliant account of their trials". The Los Angeles Times said that Gessen was "Not just a keen observer of these events" but "also an impassioned partisan." The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy Published in April 2015 by