Le Mage du Kremlin

He was known as the “Kremlin wizard.” The enigmatic Vadim Baranov worked as a director and then as a producer of reality TV shows before becoming the éminence grise of Putin, known as the Tsar. After his resignation as political advisor, legends about him began to multiply, with no one able to separate fact from fiction. Until, one night, he confided his story to the narrator of this book…

This story plunges us into the heart of Russian power, where courtiers and oligarchs wage a constant war against one another. And where Vadim, having become the regime’s chief spin doctor, transforms an entire country into a political theater, where the only reality is the fulfillment of the Tsar’s wishes. But Vadim is not an ambitious man like the others: drawn into the increasingly dark recesses of the system he helped build, this poet lost among wolves will do anything to escape.

From the war in Chechnya to the Ukrainian crisis, via the Sochi Olympics, The Kremlin’s Magician is the great novel of contemporary Russia. Unveiling the inner workings of the Putin era, it offers a sublime meditation on power.