The Age of the Strongman by Gideon Rachman: a timely and depressing book

Rachman analyses strategies used by Putin, Duterte and Bolsonaro to hold onto power

Vladimir Putin shirtless and fishing
Vladimir Putin fishes in the remote Tuva region in southern Siberia
(Image credit: Alexey Nikolsky/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)

Ali Smith’s first novel since her “extraordinary Seasonal Quartet” has a fitting title, said Alex Preston in The Observer, as it “springs from the same source as its predecessors”. Like them, it was “written and published swiftly”, to cram in recent events.

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