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Book about Putin’s private life which ‘reads like a spy novel’ wins French literary prize

A taboo-breaking book about Vladimir Putin’s rise to power and private life, written by two exiled Russian journalists, won a newly established French literary prize…

By Samantha Johnson / August 25, 2026

A taboo-breaking book about Vladimir Putin’s rise to power and private life, written by two exiled Russian journalists, won a newly established French literary prize on Tuesday.

The book, The Tsar in Propria Persona: How Vladimir Putin Deceived Us All, draws on more than two decades of investigative reporting by journalists Roman Badanin and Mikhail Rubin.

The work won a newly established literary award called Prix Strasbourg awarded by EBRA, France’s largest regional newspaper group, and its parent company, Credit Mutuel Alliance Federale.

The book is expected to be published in France next month.

It reads “like a spy novel”, the jury said, describing the book as a “fascinating and shocking work about a figure who is himself fascinating and shocking”.

“It is the result of several hundred interviews with witnesses, some of whom later disappeared under tragic circumstances.”

A high-profile Russian journalist, Badanin is the founder and editor-in-chief of Proekt, an investigative media outlet created in 2018.

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