One Minute With: Masha Gessen Where are you now and what can you see? I'm in the gymnasium of the European school in Moscow and I can see a boy playing racquetball against the wall. What are you currently reading? Marco Roth's 'The Scientists'. It's a memoir. Choose a favourite author and say why you admire her/him I cannot [pick a favourite author] but there are a lot of books that have meant a lot to me. This year's crop includes Chad Harbach's 'The Art of Fielding' and AD Miller's 'Snowdrops'. Describe the room where you usually write I have a study in my city apartment with an early 20th century black desk and a multi-pane window. My study at a dacha has a standing desk. Which fictional character most resembles you? I identify with a fictional character every time I read a book. The last one was John Irving's 'In One Person' whose protagonist was a perverse writer! Who is your hero/heroine from outside literature? Marina Salye, who is in my book. She investigated Putin in the 1990s. By the time I interviewed her, she had been in hiding for ten years, in a house in the woods. Masha Gessen's book, 'The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin', has been long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize