It may seem strange, but this book, which is stained with blood, is entertaining and sympathetic, because it presents the characters in their best attire and functions. It is true that there are thousands of dead, but the virtues of a good story always dominate, and the author manages in all cases to present the political groups in an amiable manner. The context could not be more horrible, tens of thousands of people suffer, lose their homes, face tremendously tragic situations, and yet Bonet tells this explosive world without truculence, thanks also to the many languages that she understands and respects which make her close to the people she interviews and brings them out of anonymity. Virtuously, Bonet’s narrative calls for the mobilisation of the people.The author loves these lands and wishes that peace will come soon, and her contribution is extremely significant.
——Mario Vargas Llosa

★Pilar Bonet, a correspondent for three decades in the Soviet Union, Russia and Eastern Europe, is an undisputed authority when it comes to addressing the war unleashed by Putin in Ukraine. In this fascinating book, filled with hundreds of stories from real people, the author gives a perspective on what has happened over the last twenty years between Russia and Ukraine, and reflects on the cultural roots of the war, exercising a brilliant combination of chronicle, analysis and profiles. Castaways of the Empire is a close cross-border account destined to endure as a chronicle of an era.

“On our continent two neighboring Slavic countries are fighting each other; one to re-establish an idealized identity and the other to forge its identity of the future.” This is howPilar Bonet, one of the greatest experts of the last decades on Soviet and post-Soviet territories, defines, due to her long experience as a correspondent and analyst, the war provoked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Neither a history textbook nor an essay on geopolitics, these pages shed light on the roots of the conflict. From her notes on the ground, her diaries and reflections, conversations and interviews, the author constructs a kaleidoscopic story whose protagonists are not always leading personalities, but also anonymous people who have a lot to say about what has happened and still happens. People who, with often opposing views, are all “castaways of the empire”.

Pilar Bonet

She is a jornalist, and one of the greatest experts of the last decades on Soviet and post-Soviet territories. From 1984 to 2021 was a correspondent for the newspaper El País, first in the Soviet Union and later in the Russian Federation, Ukraine and post-Soviet countries (with an interval as correspondent in Germany, from 1997 to 2000).

She has traveled extensively in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and all thecountries of post-Soviet Central Asia and is particularly interested in the unresolved problems of this region. Pilar Bonet was a research fellow at the Kennan Institute (1991-1992) and later at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. She has written several books on Russian issues and has been recognized for her journalistic work on multiple occasions. Among the latest distinctions obtained for her journalistic work is the Francisco Cerecedo prize awarded by the Association of European Journalists in 2022. She holds a degree in Spanish philology and literature from the Central University of Barcelona (1976) and in journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (1978).

AWARDS & HONOURS
* XXXIX Francisco Cerecedo Prize for journalism 2022, granted by the Association of European Journalists (APE)