A well written fiction can easily be mistaken for facts. This book pulls off an impressive feat by giving a ringside view of how power is achieved, held and operates - with a fictional right hand man of Putin.

The first chapter introduces Vadim Baranov as the mysterious spin doctor who has many myths about him. How is meeting with the "Czar" today can result in a change in election system 3 months later. He was never in position but always had stories about him circulating in whispers. We then meet him in the second chapter where he decides to narrate his story to the author.

The layers kind of protects the storyteller and also gives a very folk lorish feel. And yet, the chapters set in Russia of the 90s when a young bureaucrat called Putin was "given" the mantle of Russia read like a thriller. The fact that we know how it turned out, does not take anything away from the drama. The author's mixed feelings about the man and vice versa form a constant undercurrent all through.

I loved some of the chapters around how the narrator managed to rein in political opponents or manage the European and American leaders. Interspersed with actual recorded news events, the book makes a tough case for sorting the fact from fiction. I did not quite enjoy the narrator's own relationship with a married woman, but then you forget the book is not just about Putin.

This is one of the fun supposition books that could be, who knows, closer to the truth.

I found this to be thoroughly engrossing I could not put it down even though I was aware of possible events coming up It is well written and highly credible, offering many useful insights into Russian history and possible interpretations of Putins behaviour. Quite unique

"He was called the “Wizard of the Kremlin,” and the “new Rasputin.” At the time, his role was not clearly defined. He would show up in the president’s office when the business of the day was done. It wasn’t the secretaries who’d called him. Maybe the tsar himself had summoned him on his direct line. Or he’d guessed the right time on his own, thanks to his extraordinary talents, which everyone acknowledged without being able to say exactly what they were."

The Wizard of the Kremlin (2023) is Willard Wood's translation of Le mage du Kremlin (2022) the debut novel by political analyst Giuliano da Empoli which in the original won the 2022 Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française and was a finalist for the Prix Goncourt.

The novel is essentially a distanced account of the rise to power of Vladimir Putin, the distancing coming from:

- its fictional nature;

- the story we're told is by, and primarily of, an advisor to 'The Tsar' Vadim Baranov; and

- the tale we are hearing is being relayed by the narrator, who was told it by Baranov after the latter stepped back from power.

One interesting editorial decision is that Baranov is a fictional character, although his role and his views (but not his life story) are clearly closely modelled on Putin's ideologist Vladislav Surkov. Yet others in the novel, including Putin himself and various other aides and oligarchs, are given their real-life names.

On the fictional, or otherwise, nature of the story the author said at the time of his Prix Goncourt nomination (translation by ChatGPT):

"J'ai préparé ce livre comme un essai. À part la vie privée du personnage principal, tous les faits sont réels, j'ai rencontré énormément de gens, j'ai beaucoup voyagé en Russie. C'est une reconstitution très fidèle de ce qu'a été ce pays ces vingt dernières années. Mais au cœur du pouvoir, et du pouvoir russe en particulier, il y a des éléments de paradoxe, une contradiction permanente, une irrationalité que seule la littérature pouvait transcrire

I prepared this book like an essay. Except for the private life of the main character, all the facts are real. I have met a lot of people, traveled extensively in Russia. It is a very faithful reconstruction of what this country has been like in the last twenty years. But at the heart of power, and Russian power in particular, there are elements of paradox, a permanent contradiction, an irrationality that only literature could convey."


The historical-fiction element of the book is its weakest feature - as often with novels of that genre there is a certain walk-on-walk-off tick-box element - better make sure figures such as Yevgeny Prigozhin (and many others) make a brief appearance and that the story features incident such as Angela Merkel and Putin's labrador and many others.

The novel's strength comes from it - and its lead characters - rooting in literature - novels such as We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin (translated by Gregory Zilboorg) and Joseph Roth's Right and Left (translated by Michael Hofmann) from which Baranov takes his pseudonym:

"Baranov lived very privately. You never saw him anywhere, and an interview was out of the question. He did have one quirk, though. From time to time he would publish something, either a brief essay in an obscure independent journal, or a research article on military strategy aimed at the highest echelons of the army, or even a piece of fiction that showed off his talent for paradox, in the best Russian tradition. He never wrote under his own name, but he interspersed his texts with allusions that offered clues about the new world that was taking shape in the late-night Kremlin sessions. That, at any rate, was what the court followers in Moscow and in foreign ministries abroad believed, racing to be the first to decipher Baranov’s hidden meaning.

The pseudonym he used for these pronouncements, Nikolai Brandeis, added a further element of confusion. Adepts quickly recognized it as the name of a minor character in a seldom-read novel by Joseph Roth. Brandeis, a Tatar, plays the part of deus ex machina, appearing at crucial moments in the story only to disappear immediately after."

(in real-life Surkov is said to be the person behind Natan Dubovitsky)

And for the way that da Empoli inhabits (and worryingly convincingly extols) the belief system of Baranov/Surkov:

This on the first arrest of an oligarch:

"[It] had the immediate effect of reminding people that money doesn’t protect you from everything. This is absolutely taboo to you Westerners. A politician can be arrested, why not; but a billionaire, that’s inconceivable, because your society is based on the principle that nothing is greater than money. What’s funny is that you keep calling wealthy Russians “oligarchs,” when the truth is that the only real oligarchs are in the West. That’s where billionaires stand above the law and above the people, that’s where they buy government officials and write laws in their stead. In your part of the world, the idea of Bill Gates, of Rupert Murdoch, of Mark Zuckerberg in handcuffs is unthinkable. Whereas in Russia, a billionaire is perfectly free to spend his money, but not to influence politics. The will of the Russian people—and of the tsar, its incarnation—counts for more than any private interest."

The reaction to the Maidan revolution in Ukraine:

"I recruited them all—the bikers and the hooligans, the anarchists and the skinheads, the Communists and the religious fanatics, the Far Right, the Far Left, and most of those in the middle. Anyone likely to respond in an exciting way to the demand of Russian youths for meaning. After what had happened in Ukraine, we couldn’t allow the forces of anger to go unsupervised. If we were going to construct a truly strong system, it wasn’t enough to have a monopoly on power, we would also need a monopoly on subversion. Once again, it came down to using reality as the raw material for creating a kind of higher-order game. I’d done nothing all my life but probe the elasticity of the world, its inexhaustible propensity for paradox and contradiction. The political theater now taking shape under my direction was the natural outcome of a long trajectory."

And the decision Baranov makes to step back:

"Our epoch, exciting as it may be, is only the umpteenth version of the comedy whose many variations have unfolded over the course of the centuries. “From time to time, a man rises up in the world, displays his fortune, and proclaims: It is I! His glory lives for the duration of an interrupted dream, and already death arises and proclaims: It is I!”

Without ever having set foot there, and three centuries ago, La Bruyère described the Kremlin of today more accurately than our best journalists have, or yours."

Ultimately this isn't the sort of novel I'd normally read - the UK equivalent would I think be Robert Harris - but worthwhile. 3.5 stars

Robert Harris does Russia, with the Cicero of the Kremlin, a Moscovian Machiavelli

The author is an Italian/Swiss one-time political advisor to the Italian Prime Minister and now a Political Studies Professor. This his debut novel was originally published in French as “Le Mage du Kremlin” in 2022, and has been translated into English by Willard Wood – and while in the US it has been picked up by PRH, in the UK it has been published by the independent Pushkin Press who dominated the 2021 International Booker Prize (winning novel and 1/3rd of the shortlist).

I would be surprised if this novel appears on the IB shortlist this year – as it is probably not “literary” enough, but it is a blend of fact and fiction (which the IB seems to like – no more so than in 2021), is very well written and translated and is extremely eye opening about a foreign culture (which is of course one of the strongest arguments for reading translated literature).

As my opening alliteration implies – I (and I think many other reviewers) was reminded reading the novel of the writing of Robert Harris, particularly in his core writing about lightly fictionalised realpolitik (from Republican Rome to post-restoration England through the World Wars to the Vatican and Blairite London).

This novel has as its biographical narrator – Vadim Baranov, based it seems on the real life Vladislav Surkov political advisor to Putin for many years and originator of concepts/doctrines such as vertical power and sovereign democracy as exercised by Putin’s Russia. Unlike Survok who seems to be from humble Chechen backgrounds, Barnov’s is from a more Russian elite background (his grandfather a well-connected maverick, his father a conforming, well-connected Communist) which gives him more of a historical perspective on power and influence in Russia.

Other than Baranov (and some of the other details of his life) the other characters and events in the novel are much closer to historic reality.

Baranov starts his life in the creative arts as part of an artistic cohort who believe they are remaking Russia in the increasingly anarchic Yeltsin years - where he also meets his partner Kesnia who in turn leaves him for the oligarch Mikhail (Khodorkovsky) after which he moves into TV and falls into the orbit of ORT’s owner Boris Berezovsky who later introduces Baranov to the man Berezovsky believes he is grooming as Yeltsin’s successor – Putin.

Baranov quickly realises Putin’s formidable drive and agrees to act as direct advisor to him and from there we go through events such as Putin’s various election campaigns, Putin’s firm response to Chechnyan terrorism and revolution, the Kursk submarine sinking, the arrest of Khodorkovsky and general down fall of the Yeltsin-era Oligarchs including the exile of Berezovsky, the Kursk submarine sinking, the Sochi Olympics, Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the recruiting to the cause of Alexander Zaldastanov and the Night Wolves, Yvegeny Prigozhin (eventual Wagner Group founder) and the increasing projection of Russian soft power and destabilisation in Western democracies.

The weakest part of the novel is its framing device – the initial narrator is a Western academic researcher in Moscow to look into the work of the Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin and in particular his 1921 science-fiction satire “We” (which the narrator believes to speak directly to the algorithmic big-data world we are in now). A tweet brings him into contact with the reclusive, now-retired Baranov (who has a historical interest in Zamyatin) and the rather artificial conceit of the novel is that it told in a single night by Baranov to the narrator.

For much of the book this seems unnecessary as well as taking up too much of the start of the novel – a slow start which is exacerbated by Baranov even when he does start speaking giving the story of his grandfather and father before his own.

It does at the end permit the author, via Baranov, to bring the novel back to “We” and to make his own dystopian predictions about how the direction in which technology is processing (Big Data, surveillance, tracking, AI) is inadvertently preparing the way for dictatorial governments which will no longer need to rely on human agency.

Even this though I think may have been better in a different novel

Instead the real strength of this novel, what has made it already a best seller and due to events made the author an in-demand commentator, what makes it a memorable read – is its core: the coldly calculating way in which the fictional Baranov articulates the doctrine of Putin’s Russia and argues time and time again how it not just differs from Western norms but is intrinsically better suited to the 21st Century.

The Wizard of the Kremlin by Giuliano da Empoli, translated by Willard Wood, is a scary book both for what it represents and for what it seems to be trying to do. It has been described as quasi-fiction as its main character is very heavily based on real person and all of the other characters in the book are real people. In The Wizard of the Kremlin da Empoli is trying to understand and explain the rise of Valdimir Putin, but in doing so many see a more positive portrait of the man than certainly recent events might suggest.
The wizard of the title in a man called Vadim Baranov, a PR expert who tells his story to a student ver the course of a single night. Baranov was on the ground floor when his boss, an oligarch who ran Russian TV, suggested to KGB supremo Vladimir Putin that he run for office. Putin quickly goes out on his own, taking Baranov and a group of loyalists with him. Baranov then charts the rise of Putin and the way in which his strongman tactics won over Russia and then allowed him to put Russia back at the table of world affairs. While Baranov, as a PR expert takes some credit for the strategies that Putin executed, the thrust of the narrative is that Putin himself was always in control and used his understanding of both the Russian people and the West to boost his power.
The Wizard of the Kremlin gives another view of world affairs, including matters like election interference in the US, and the way in which global power can be used. But given the events since – the failed invasion in Ukraine, the failed coup attempt by Prigozhin (whose rise is chronicled in the book) – maybe a more rose coloured view of Putin’s savvy than is warranted. Taken with a few grains of salt though, The Wizard of the Kremlin gives a fascinating insight into the way in which Russian politics might work and certainly how it differs markedly from the politics of the West.

At times a coming-of-age story in a rapidly transforming Russia, at others almost thriller-like in construction, this is an intriguing glimpse into the rise of Vladimir Putin through the eyes of one of his closest (fictional) advisors. Written by a French-Italian author and translated in this version by a French-American writer, one of the most interesting aspects of this book is the way it criticises the perceived indulgences of the West through the mouthpiece of Baranov, a thinly-veiled stand-in for Vladislav Surkov, once Russia’s deputy prime minister among other more shadowy roles. The book weaves fiction and fact, self-aware of its own construction, never afraid to take a jab at itself in the process.

A history book this is not. But there’s plenty to learn here, and da Empoli has so much to say - about politics, of course, and also about the power of art to shape not just the stories on the page but the stories we build for ourselves and about ourselves. “The future,” Baranov tells our frame narrator, will be determined “not by the competition between two political programs but between two artistic visions.”

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Vadim Baranov, a fictional character based on Putin's advisor, tells his visitor what pushes Putin and Russia when it comes to power. Interesting insights on the recent history of the country, well worth a read in the current political climate.

A riveting fictionalisation of Putin's rise and the people around him which made this possible. Da Empoli gives us the shading in of the grey areas, during a night long outpouring by a character based on a person very close to the scenes of power. I was going to use 'confession' instead of outpouring but I do not feel it's a confession, which supposes some sort of repentance. It's more an outpouring of a disillusioned man, who is staring reality in the face. And his reality does not allow for many safe moves at this stage.

I felt that the beginning and the end did not flow with the rest of the book. At the beginning we had an unnamed narrator who then stayed quiet for the rest of the book and returned only to walk out at the end. And at the end we have the jump from how power is wielded by people, in this case in Russia, to how power will be wielded in future, that is by AI. The strongest part of the book is when Vadim is narrating, with his views on power, how it is acquired, how it is kept, and the consequences.

An ARC kindly provided by author/publisher via Netgalley.

If you are in the mood for a political novel, read this! It is essentially a very long monologue of Vadim Baranov, a fictional character based on Vladislav Surkov, one of Putin’s closest advisers and spin doctors at the time he rose to power and sought to consolidate it.

The novel is fascinating, mostly because it gives insight in Putin’s philosophy and belief system. But its strongest point for me were the countless nuggets of political wisdom on power and politics and the excellent dialogues with Berezovsky and Putin. And it is very well written as well.

It reminded me a bit of a good Robert Harris novel, who also writes about power very well.