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Gibson Square signs books from Felshtinsky, ex-KGB officer Popov and Wilson
Gibson Square has signed the "first comprehensive history of the Russian Secret Service" by Dr Yuri Felshtinsky and ex-KGB Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Popov and a "ground-breaking exposé" about the Russian paramilitary group The Wagner Group by Owen Wilson.
Publisher Martin Rynja acquired world rights to both texts directly from the respective authors. Felshtinsky’s and Popov’s From Red Terror to Terrorist State: Russia’s Secret Service and Its Fight for World Domination from Felix Dzerzhinsky to Vladimir Putin: 2017-2022 has sold in Spain, France, Germany, Poland and Lithuania. Gibson Square will publish in August 2023 simultaneously with Editions du Cerf in France. The Wagner Group will be published in January 2024 to coincide with the Russian presidential election.
Originally written in Russian, From Red Terror to Terrorist State offers an "exceptional" history of Russian Secret Service, the Cheka, based on primary sources and interviewees not previously available in the West and also information from Popov’s private archives. Felshtinsky had brief access to Russian archives in the 1990s under Yeltsin before they were closed. He is also the first American academic to receive his doctorate in history from the Russian Academy of Sciences.
On From Red Terror to Terrorist State, Rynja commented: "Based on impeccable first-hand sources, it is an encyclopaedic work and will doubtless create once again debate and a reappraisal of how we see the modern Kremlin as a whole."
The Wagner Group "sets out to expose ’the shadowy Russian paramilitary organisation that fought in Ukraine’" while examining the group’s history in Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic.
Wilson commented: "This book is the first on the subject and I think now more than ever, these shocking revelations on the cruel and vicious methods deployed by the mercenaries to do the Kremlin’s bidding must see the light of day. We must open our eyes to what is happening on our continent and beyond."
Rynja added: "There is no one better than Wilson, with his background in journalism, meticulous research and critically acclaimed writing about specialised crime, to bring this group’s global presence to the general public’s attention."
