Boris Akunin receives Freedom to Publish Award at 2024 Nibbies

Georgian-Russian author Boris Akunin has received the Freedom to Publish Award at The British Book Awards 2024. It was revealed during a ceremony in London this evening (Monday 13th May). 

Presented by Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and supported by Index on Censorship, Akunin, the pen name for Grigori Chkhartishvili, becomes the third recipient of the prize. He is one of Russia’s most widely read novelists, yet is unable to return to his country due to his long-standing criticism of President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. A piece of work featuring Russian political prisoners led a Moscow court to charge Akunin with “justifying terrorism” and to order his arrest in absentia.

He is the first author to have his books banned in Russia since the Soviet era. Moscow’s largest bookshops have removed Akunin’s books from their shelves, performances of his plays have been stopped, while a publishing house that possesses rights to many of Akunin’s books has been raided.  

His bestselling books include the Inspector Fandorin mysteries, which chronicle the tsarist and early-Soviet empires, and The History of the Russian State series, which combines non-fiction with fiction. 

Akunin lives in London after leaving Russia in 2014 following Moscow’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. He co-founded the platform True Russia in 2022 with the dancer-choreographer Mikhail Baryshnikov and others, which supports Ukrainian refugees and Russians fleeing political persecution.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe said: "With an increase in banning books in the United States and the authors being cancelled across the world, the Iranian writers receiving Nobel Peace prizes from within prison and many in publishing industry being killed in war and conflicts such as Ukraine and Israel-Palestine, the attacks on writers and publishers have been many and shocking over the last year. Democracy is fragile and it is often writers and artists who are the first to be attacked when autocracy overtakes. However, it is also the very same people who typically stand firm."

Speaking from the ceremony, Akunin said: "I am immensely honoured to be given this award. And I am immensely sad too, because I am a Russian author without freedom to publish in my own country. My dream is to see the times when there will be no need for this award anywhere in the world, the times when ’Freedom to Publish’ will have become history."  

Jemimah Steinfeld, incoming chief executive of Index on Censorship, said: "Putin isn’t holding back in his attacks on Boris Akunin. The direction of travel is deeply troubling and happening at a time when Putin has just been ’re-elected’ for many more years. The bravery and fortitude of people like Akunin is truly humbling. In him we have someone who is willing to put themselves behind their principles and who is willing to take on one of the greatest threats to today’s democratic order."  

She added: "That has obviously come at a high price for Akunin and it’s our duty to recognise that and join him in the broader fight against those who seek to silence." 

Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller and chair of judges at The British Book Awards, added: "This award was established at a moment when the threats to free expression at home and abroad were rising, and unfortunately over the past three years we have only seen more and more instances of censorship, silencing and sidelining among our communities. We must continue to stand by writers, their publishers and booksellers, in the struggle against the suppression of legal, legitimate and necessary criticism." 

The Freedom to Publish Award was established in 2022 at The British Book Awards to highlight the growing threats to writers, publishers and booksellers, and to amplify those who fight back.  

Last year the recipient was Salman Rushdie, while in 2022 the award recognised the fortitude and bravery of HarperCollins and its editor Arabella Pike.