Giuliano Da Empoli Thu, 15th June 2023, 8:00 pm The magician in the Kremlin Literature “This novel is based on true events and real people, to whom, however, the author assigns a private life and invented statements.” Thus begins Giuliano Da Empoli’s first novel, a brilliantly written political thriller that brings us three decades of Russian history after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The visionary novel on the border of fiction and reality, a bestseller in France for months, shows the rise of the colorless apparatchik Vladimir Putin to a lonely megalomaniac, the tsar of a weakened empire who eliminates all opposition, from the perspective of his longtime shadow man and “magician” Vadim Baranov, the fictional alter ego of Vladislav Surkov, Putin’s spin doctor in office until 2021. A novel of burning topicality. Giuliano da Empoli is a French-Italian political scientist, publicist, political consultant, writer and scholar. Moderation: Barbara Machui Language: German/French Translation: Peter Reif In cooperation with the German-French Cultural Circle (dfk) In the series Democracy