Giuliano da Empoli is a sociologist, essayist and political consultant of Italian-Swiss origin. Director of the think tank Volta in Milan, he also teaches at Sciences Po Paris. The Wizard of the Kremlin, his first novel, is the literary phenomenon of the year in France and has won the French Academy’s Grand Prix de Novel and the Honoré de Balzac prize, as well as being a finalist for the Goncourt and Interallié prizes.