The Wizard of the Kremlin

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He was known as the Wizard of the Kremlin. The enigmatic Vadim Baranov was a TV producer beforebecoming political advisor to Putin. After he resigns from this position, legends about himmultiply, without anyone being able to distinguish truth from fiction. Until one night, he tellshis story to the narrator of this book...


Welcome to the heart of Russian power, where sycophants and oligarchs have been engaging in openwarfare, and where Vadim, now the regime's main spin doctor, turns an entire country into anavant-garde political stage. Yet Vadim is not as ambitious as the others. Entangled in theincreasingly dark secret workings of the regime he has contributed to build, he will do anything toget out, guided by the memory of his grandfather, an eccentric aristocrat who survived theRevolution, and the mesmerizing, merciless Ksenia, whom he has fallen in love with.


From the war in Chechnya to the invasion of Ukraine, The Wizard of the Kremlin is a great novel oncontemporary Russia, and a sobering meditation on power, which takes the readerbehind the scenes of the Putin era.

Reviews

'A staggering account of the mental makeup and aggressive logic of Vladimir Putin... A story of great literary and historical force that you must read if you want to understand what, from here, seems incomprehensible' - Liberation

'A highly economical, well documented pageturner, describing twenty years in the corridors of Russian power, with a simple, seductive style and unmatched realism' - Frederic Beigbeder

'You cannot put this book down... Fascinating and suffocating. A clinical analysis of the art of authoritarian rule' - France Inter

'An absolutely extraordinary novel... You feel you're sitting on a sofa next to Putin, that you are inside his head' - Patricia Martin

'Of course this novel sheds a revealing light on current geopolitical events. But it will outlive them thanks to its unwavering lucidity and sparkling style' - Le Monde des Livres

Author Bio

Giuliano da Empoli is an Italian and Swiss writer and journalist living in France. He was once a senior advisor to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The Wizard of the Kremlin is his debut novel. It has sold more than half a million copies in France, where it also won the Grand Prix du Roman and was a finalist for the Goncourt Prize. It has since gone on to become an international bestseller, translated into twenty-eight languages across the world.