Paulina Siegień from the Institute of Russian and Eastern Studies at the University of Gdańsk was awarded the Conrad Prize for the best prose debut of last year. The jury awarded her book ”A Fairytale City”, which tells the story of Kaliningrad.
It is a thoroughly European city. And yet, the transformation of the former capital of East Prussia first into Soviet and then Russian Kaliningrad evokes a strange unease, a feeling of inadequacy felt in the city itself – for the inhabitants and the authorities, both local government and the Kremlin.
Paulina Siegień’s book about Kaliningrad, founded on the ruins of Königsberg, was appreciated not only by the competition jury, but also by the public. The book was published by the Czarne publishing house as part of its non-fiction and reportage series.
Paulina Siegień is a journalist and translator by profession. She is completing her doctorate at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Gdańsk.
