Dolman Travel Book of the Year 2011 winner announced

Wanderlust - 7th July 2011

A freewheeling journey through a century of Russian history, 'Molotov’s Magic Lantern', has been named the Dolman Travel Book of the Year

Molotov's Magic Lantern by Rachel Polonsky was awarded the Dolman Travel Book of the Year prize at a ceremony in London last night. Chair of judges, the author Giles Foden, described the winning book as ‘a secret history of Russian culture, past and present, told with great scholarship and endeavour’.

Polonsky left behind a Cambridge fellowship in Russian literature to move to Moscow in the mid 1990s. Her apartment block near the Kremlin had housed many senior Soviet officials during the Cold War. In it she unearthed a hoard of documents belonging to Vyacheslav Molotov, the former Soviet foreign minister, as well as an antique projector: the magic lantern of the title. The discovery leads her on a physical and intellectual journey through Russia’s recent history.

Accepting the award, Polonsky said she was ‘honoured’ to have won, and praised the other shortlisted titles. They were:
Dreaming in Hindi: Life in Translation by Katherine Russell Rich (Portobello Books)
Drinking Arak off an Ayatollah’s Beard by Nicolas Jubber (Da Capo Press)
Germania by Simon Winder (Picador)
Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris by Graham Robb (Picador)
The Last Resort: A memoir of Zimbabwe by Douglas Rogers (Shortbooks)
The Dolman award is administered by London’s Authors’ Club, and named after a private benefactor. It is the only prize for travel books in the UK.