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CHRONIC. To understand a dictatorship, literature is better than political analysis. This is what the novel “The Magus of the Kremlin” shows.
By Kamel Daoud
© KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP
Published on
” NOTOur steps sank into the snow, taking the place of words. » A metaphor of beautiful acuity extracted from the Kremlin Mage, by Giuliano da Empoli. One can read this novel, rewarded and useful, as much to extract oneself from politics as to understand it and plunge into the territories of the barbarism of power. Because in democracies, dictatorship is often poorly understood. We prefer these simplifications which would almost justify the indignation of the monster, ridiculed by the small rationalizations of the Western spectator. Which ones? That dictatorship is a solitary act for example! And of course that is wrong. A dictatorship does not come into the world lonely, but with the angry incarnation of half (if not more) of a people emerging rejuvenated from the fountain of their grudges…
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