Giuliano da Empoli

Giuliano da Empoli
Empoli in 2005
Born	1973 (age 51–52) Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Occupation	Political essayist novelist
Language	French Italian
Alma mater	Sapienza University of Rome Sciences Po
Years active	1996–present
Notable works	Les ingénieurs du chaos (2019) Le mage du Kremlin (2022)

Giuliano da Empoli (born 1973) is an Italian and Swiss political essayist and novelist. He is the founding chairman of Volta, a think tank based in Milan and a professor at Sciences Po Paris. In 2022, he published his debut novel Le Mage du Kremlin, for which he received the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française.

Life and career

Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1973,^[1] Giuliano da Empoli grew up in several European countries, graduated in law at Sapienza University of Rome and obtained a master's degree in political science at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).^[2]

He has been Deputy Mayor for culture in Florence^[3] and a senior advisor to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

He has also been an executive board member at the Venice Biennale^[4] and the chairman of the Gabinetto Vieusseux in Florence.

From 2006 to 2008, he served as Senior Advisor to Italy's Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of Culture, Francesco Rutelli, establishing the first Italian Design Council in Milan.^[5]

From 2014, he is member of the Italy-USA Foundation. In 2016, he founded the think tank Volta, a member of the Global Progress network.

He has been a guest speaker at numerous conferences around the world (including São Paulo's ESPM, Geneva's Finance Foundation, Paris' Foundation Ricard and Zürich's Club Baur au Lac) and is a member of The Travellers Club^[6] in Paris.

Writer and political essayist

Since 1996, he has been a regular contributor and columnist for the country's leading printed media, including Il Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, Il Sole 24 Ore and Il Riformista.

He also hosted a weekly talk radio show on Italy's main financial news radio, Radio 24. As an author and social commentator, he has been regularly appearing on all of the main Italian TV channels.^[7]

At the age of twenty-two he published his first book^[8] "Un grande futuro dietro di noi" about the problems faced by the Italian youth, which sprung a national debate and led the newspaper La Stampa to designate him "Man of the year".^[9]

In 2022, he published his debut novel Le mage du Kremlin (The Wizard of the Kremlin), whose main character is modelled on Vladimir Putin's advisor Vladislav Surkov.^[10] The novel was awarded the 2022 Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française.^[11] The novel was a finalist for the 2022 Prix Goncourt.^[12] The novel lost to Brigitte Giraud's Vivre vite after fourteen rounds of voting ended in a stalemate, leading the president of the Goncourt Academy to cast the deciding vote, choosing Giraud over Giuliano da Empoli.^[13]

Books

• Un grande futuro dietro di noi (Marsilio, 1996) ISBN 88-317-6488-8
• La Guerra del talento (2000) about meritocracy and mobility in the digital economy ISBN 88-317-7401-8^[14]
• Overdose (2002) about information overload ISBN 88-317-7966-4^[15]
• Fuori controllo (2004)^[16] about the "brazilification" of contemporary society (translated into French by Grasset^[17] and Brazilian Portuguese by Sulina^[18]) ISBN 88-317-8659-8^[19]
• La sindrome di Meucci (2005) about Italy's creative industries ISBN 88-317-8923-6^[20]
• Canton Express (2008), a historical travelogue (translated into Portuguese by Livraria Bertrand) ISBN 978-88-06-19212-9^[21]
• Obama, La politica nell'era di Facebook (2008) about Barack Obama's election as an example of auto-biographical politics^[22] ISBN 88-317-9608-9
• Contro gli specialisti (Marsilio, 2013) ISBN 88-317-1516-X
• La prova del potere (Mondadori, 2015) ISBN 88-046-5069-9
• Le Florentin (Grasset, 2016) ISBN 2246859875
• La rabbia e l'algoritmo (Marsilio, 2017) ISBN 978-88-317-2773-0
• Les ingénieurs du chaos (Lattès, 2019) ISBN 9782709664066
• Le mage du Kremlin (Gallimard, 2022) ISBN 9782072958168

References

1. Lépine, Elise (27 October 2022). "Qui est Giuliano da Empoli, lauréat du Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française avec "Le Mage du Kremlin"?". Le Point (in French). Retrieved 11 November 2022.
2. La nuova classe dirigente si seleziona nell'arena, Il Giornale della Libertà, 4 gennaio 2008 [1]^{[permanent dead link‍]}
3. Con Renzi il fondatore di Dada e Giuliano da Empoli, Il Corriere della Sera, 28 giugno 2009 [2]
4. Biennale, nominato il nuovo cda, La Repubblica, 20 dicembre 2007
5. "The Italian Design Council". design-italia. 23 November 2007.^{[permanent dead link‍]}
6. "The Travellers Paris".
7. "Tg2 Punto di vista, 8 novembre 2007 .: Tg2.rai.it :". 2 February 2023.^{[permanent dead link‍]}
8. Attenti, noi giovani ora apriamo la caccia, La Repubblica, 25 novembre 1996 [3]
9. Lerner, Gad. "Un enfant prodige lancia la <lobby dei giovani, classe oppressa> <Over quaranta, tremate>, La Stampa, 31 ottobre 1996" (in Italian). Archived from the original on 22 July 2011.
10. de Gruyter, Caroline (30 July 2022). "The Wizard of the Kremlin". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 12 September 2022.
11. "Giuliano da Empoli lauréat du grand prix de l'Académie française". Le Monde (in French). 27 October 2022. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
12. "Le Goncourt présente sa première sélection, voici les 15 romans retenus, Despentes écartée". Libération (in French). 6 September 2022. Retrieved 12 September 2022.
13. "Brigitte Giraud remporte le Goncourt avec "Vivre vite", 13^e autrice sacrée en 120 ans". L'Express (in French). AFP. 3 November 2022. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
14. Alberto Statera, Le paure dei gamberi rossi, La Repubblica, 27 marzo 2000 [4]
15. Nello Ajello, Questo mondo sovrastato dal narcisismo di massa, La Repubblica, 29 aprile 2002 [5]
16. "Beppe Severgnini, Un futuro brasiliano?, Il Corriere della Sera, 12 maggio 2005".
17. Roger-Pol Droit, Sommes nous tous des brésiliens?, Le Monde, 16 février 2007 [6]
18. www.digestivocultural.com
19. "Frequently polemical but always thought-provoking" (Tom Hennigan, Is the Future Brazilian?, The Irish Times, Juli 7 2007)[7]
20. "La Sindrome di Meucci di Giuliano da Empoli – DUE MINUTI UN LIBRO – Rubrica di approfondimento di La7". Archived from the original on 23 August 2009.
21. Giovanni Dozzini, Da Empoli Jr sulle orme del suo avo, Europa, 2 agosto 2008 [8] Archived 22 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
22. http://www.radio.rai.it/radio2/28minuti/view.cfm?Q_EV_ID=273943^{[permanent dead link‍]}

External links

• Volta website
• Florence municipality website
• Venice Biennale website
• Radio France Interview (in French)
• Epoca, leading brazilian magazine interview (in Portuguese)
• Venice Sessions talks (in Italian)