Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française
The Wizard of the Kremlin: A Novel
A political novel that brings the center of power into view through one man's confession. Drawing on the outlines of real people and events, it sharply questions the boundary between fact and fiction.
Work Information
A confession that illuminates the dark underside of Russian power.
Centering on Vadim Baranov, a figure who evokes a real political adviser, the novel portrays the structure of Russian power and the spectacle built around it. Through a confessional first-person frame, it follows a world of television, propaganda, elections, and war, and shows how power rewrites the stories told about it.
Review Summaries
-
Its intellectual premise and character work are praised for making the mechanics of power feel convincing. At the same time, readers tend to divide over how they feel about the book's proximity to real events.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Other Press
- Published
- 2023-11-07
- Pages
- 304 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 13.21 x 1.96 x 20.19 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781635423952
- ISBN-10
- 1635423953
- Price
- 3548 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Mystery & Thrillers/Thrillers/Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue
A Best Book of the Year by Financial Times and Bloomberg Filled with real political insight and intrigue, this thrilling novel explores the nature of power through the inner workings of Putin’s regime. Known as the “Wizard of the Kremlin,” the enigmatic Vadim Baranov was a TV producer before becoming a political advisor to Putin, aka “The Czar.” After his resignation from this position, legends about him multiply, with no one able to distinguish truth from fiction. Until one night, when he tells his story to the narrator of this book… He immerses us in the heart of the Russian state, where sycophants and oligarchs have been engaging in open warfare, and where Vadim, now the regime’s main spin doctor, turns an entire country into an avant-garde political stage. Yet Vadim is not as ambitious as the others. Entangled in the increasingly dark secrets of the regime he has helped create, he will do anything to get out, guided by the memory of his grandfather, an eccentric aristocrat who survived the Revolution, and the mesmerizing, merciless Ksenia, whom he has fallen in love with. Giuliano da Empoli, once a senior advisor to Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi, draws on his experience behind the scenes to create an authentic, compelling portrait of power and how it corrupts.
Giuliano da Empoli is an Italian and Swiss writer and political scientist. He was Deputy Mayor for Culture in Florence and a senior advisor to Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi. Since the publication of his first book at age twenty-two, he has published eleven more books on politics and economics. His first novel, The Wizard of the Kremlin , won the Grand Prix du Roman and was a finalist for the Goncourt Prize. It will be translated into more than thirty languages. Willard Wood grew up in France and has translated more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction from the French. He has won the Lewis Galantière Award for Literary Translation and received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Translation. His recent translations include Camille de Toledo’s Theseus, His New Life (Other Press 2023) and Patrick Boucheron’s Trace and Aura (Other Press 2022). He lives in Norfolk, Connecticut.
Reviews
-
Indispensable pour comprendre la Russie d'aujourd'hui
-
ich kann das Buch nur empfehlen. es ist was ich ertatet hatte
-
Excellent book. Especially with what is going on now.
-
Grande livro
-
This is a very easy read, but intriguing. The ideas and viewpoints from the perspective of a Russian at the highest echelons of power are unique.