Vladimir Kara-Murza memoir 'One Day Free' to be released May 18

Russian opposition leader and Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator Vladimir Kara-Murza has authored a memoir titled “One Day Free,” set to be released on May 18. The book is described as a personal testimony and a historical chronicle of life over the past quarter century under President Vladimir Putin.

Public Affairs, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, announced the forthcoming publication. Kara-Murza stated that his book examines Putin's rule and provides an “honest look at those people, both in Russia and in the West, who strengthened and enabled it — and at those who fought it, sometimes at the price of their own lives.”

Kara-Murza, 45, is an activist, journalist, and filmmaker. He was arrested in 2022 for publicly opposing Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subsequently sentenced to 25 years. He was released in 2024 as part of a prisoner exchange and now resides in the United States, where he serves as vice-chairman of Open Russia, a pro-democracy non-governmental organization founded by exiled Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

While imprisoned, Kara-Murza was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for commentary for columns he contributed to The Washington Post. He endured 11 months of solitary confinement in Siberia and survived two poisonings, which he attributed to Russian officials.

“In spite of everything, I am optimistic about Russia and its future,” Kara-Murza said. “History knows many examples of once-terrifying tyrannies becoming peaceful civilized democracies — and no nation in the world is ever ‘destined’ to unfreedom.”