About the book: 2012 / "Emperor of the West" is Michon's third work, and it can be regarded as the most mysterious, "difficult" and most stylistically sophisticated. Action takes place in the year 423 of our chronology, the young Roman commander Aetius, who is on duty on the island of Lipari, near the active volcano of Stromboli, meets an old man, about whom he knows that he, shortly before the Goths captured and sacked Rome, was associated with the leader of these tribes with Alaric and even for some time, at the latter’s insistence, occupied the imperial throne; the legitimate emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Honorius, was hiding in Ravenna at that time, and his sister Galla Placidia, a tasty morsel for all conquerors, was the actual ruler. The name of this old man and former emperor was Priscus Attalus. Formally, the book is about him, but in fact the main character is Alaric, a legendary warrior in whom Attalus, as well as young Aetius later, dream of finding a father, that is, a strong personality to look up to.