In Towers of Stone, award-winning Polish reporter Wojciech Jagielski brings into focus the tragedy of Chechnya, its inhabitants, and the war being waged there by a handful of desperate warriors against a powerful and much more numerous army. Jagielski’s narrative is told through the lens of two men: Shamil Basaev, a hero to some, a dangerous warlord to others; and Aslan Maskhadov, a calculating and sober politician, who is viewed as a providential savior by some of his compatriots and a cowardly opportunist by the rest. Caught up in a war to which they owe everything and without which they could not live, the two fighters face enemy forces - and one another - in protean conflicts that prove hard to quell. Viewing the two men’s personal story as a microcosm of the conflict threatening to devour a land and its peoples, Jagielski distills the bitter history of the region with forceful clarity.

Wojciech Jagielski has already achieved recognition for his reporting from the most inflamed points on our globe. [This latest work] will only confirm his reputation. – Ryszard Kapuscinski

Wojciech Jagielski has been a foreign correspondent for Gazeta Wyborcza since 1991, reporting mainly from conflict zones in the Transcaucasus, Central Asia, and Africa. He is author of 4 books in Polish, including the acclaimed Night Wanderers (2009), about child soldiers in Uganda, and, in English translation, Towers of Stone: The Battle of Wills in Chechnya.