Acclaimed journalist Simon Shuster gives us the first inside account of the Russian invasion of
Ukraine from the perspective of President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team who granted him
unprecedented access. Time correspondent Simon Shuster chronicles the life and wartime
leadership of Volodymyr Zelensky from the dressing rooms of his variety show in Ukraine to the
muddy trenches of his war with Russia. Based on four years of reporting extensive travels with
President Zelensky to the front and dozens of interviews with him his wife his friends and
enemies his advisers ministers and military commanders The Showman tells an intimate and
eye-opening story of the President's evolution from a slapstick actor to a symbol of resilience
revealing how he managed to rally the world's democracies behind his cause. The book's early
chapters offer the first detailed account of Zelensky's life in a nuclear bunker in the opening
weeks of the invasion and the circumstances of his wife's escape to safety with their children.
Later as the Russians retreat from Kyiv we see Zelensky and his team emerge from the bunker
and lead Ukraine in a series of crucial victories. The result is a riveting up-close picture
of the invasion as experienced by its number one target and improbable hero. Clear-eyed about
the President's early failures as a peacemaker and his willingness to silence political dissent
the book offers a complex picture of a man struggling to break what he sees as a historical
cycle of oppression that began generations before he was born. Even as the war drags on
Zelensky lays out his vision for its future course and through his actions demonstrates his
strategy for countering the Russians and keeping the West on his side. The Showman as a work
of eyewitness journalism provides an essential perspective on the war defining our age. As a
study in leadership and human resolve its appeal is timeless and universal.
