Jonathan Coe & Giuliano da Empoli: IN PRAISE OF POLITICAL LITERATURE

Tessa Szyszkowitz in conversation with Jonathan Coe and
Giuliano da Empoli





IN PRAISE OF POLITICAL LITERATURE


When politics goes low, literature goes high: When, how and why
do authors give their novels a political twist?





When Michelle Obama coined the phrase “When they go low, we go
high” at the Democratic Party conference in 2016 she was talking
about ethical leadership. Different from politicians, authors do
not have an obligation to be either ethical nor leaders. Or do
they?


Literature has been abused for political propaganda throughout
history. Vergil’s “Aeneis” portrayed the emperor Augustus as
heroic and his regime as a gift from God. In more modern times
Jean Paul Sartre and Theodor Adorno had a public spat about Pros
and Cons of political Literature: In his essay “What is
literature?” Sartre advocated for engaged literature to further
social change. In his essay “Commitment” Adorno called such
literature as ineffective and even harmful.





Both Jonathan Coe and Giuliano da Empoli are known for their
political literature. While Coe often uses humour and satire to
mix social commentary into his bestsellers –  as in his
Brexit-Satire Middle England – da Empoli comes from the other
direction entirely. His first time novel and instant bestseller
The Wizard of the Kremlin – Der Magier im Kreml – was a beautiful
novel about a trade he knows all too well himself. He writes
about Vladislaw Surkow, former influential chief advisor to the
Russian president Vladimir Putin, after da Empoli served as a
political former advisor to former Italian prime minister Matteo
Renzi.


 


Jonathan Coe, born 1961, is a British novelist.
He would possibly rather be known as a musician –he still plays
keyboards and composes music for two bands: The Peer Group and
Italy’s Artchipel Orchestra. But since he became too successful
as a novelist, people know him as an author. “What a Carve Up!”,
“The Rotters club”, “Middle England” are only a few highlights in
his oeuvre. He received many prizes among them The Costa Novel of
the Year and the Prix du Livre Européen. His newest novel was
 published this August in German: “Der Beweis meiner
Unschuld”, Folio Verlag, 2025.


 


Giuliano  da Empoli, born 1973, is the
Swiss Italian author of The Wizard of the
Kremlin – Der Magier im Kreml, a first time novel and
bestseller about Vladislaw Surkow, former influential chief
advisor to the Russian president Vladimir Putin. He is a former
political advisor himself, he served as the deputy mayor for
cultural affairs in Florence to Matteo Renzi, and later as his
political advisor during Renzi’s term as head of the Italian
government (2014-2016) – an experience recounted in Le
Florentin („The Florentine“) Giuliano da Empoli is a
professor at Sciences Po university, the founder of the
pro-European political thinktank  Volta in Milan and has
just publishedhis new book  Die Stunde der Raubtiere
(L’Heure des prédateurs, The Hour of the Predator,), a reflection
on the current era of new autocrats allied with tech
magnates. 


 


Tessa Szyszkowitz is an author and UK
correspondent for the Austrian weekly Falter. Her latest book was
“Echte Engländer – Britain and Brexit” (2018)