Diplomatic Baggage by Brigid Keenan: book review

Diplomatic Baggage: The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse (2005) is the memoir of woman who follows her diplomat husband from one international assignment to another over 30 years, from 1970 to March 2003.

The novel is book-ended by Kazakhstan in diary form. Chapter 1 commences with the family moving to Almaty, Kazakhstan, where a 29-year-old diplomat’s wife, on her first assignment, asks Keenan for advice. The book is about Keenan’s reflection of her own life – the advantages and disadvantages – until the last chapter, where she provides the woman with her answer.

British-born Keenan contemplates her decision to leave her job in Paris as Fashion and Beauty Editor for Nova magazine to marry AW. She begins with meeting AW in a maternity ward in 1970 after the birth of a mutual friend’s baby, and marrying him in 1972 when she was 33 years old. AW’s first posting was Nepal. This introduction could have been shortened.

This is her story, written in the first person, country by country, covering Nepal, Ethiopia. Trinidad, Barbados, Belgium, India, The Gambia, Belgium, and Syria. She finds ways to busy herself, while bringing up two children - Hester (26 at the time of writing) and Claudia (23).

Personally, I was interested in the countries where I have worked and travelled. Therefore I found the six years in Syria, from 1993 to 1999, rather interesting, with descriptions of the Old City.

Overall, the countries mentioned include only cursory descriptions of the landscape, politics, and people. Hence this is not a travelogue. There is an annoying lack of dates, so readers sometimes wonder what year she is writing about. The narrative is funny and honest (although occassionally cringeworthy and not politically correct). Nevertheless there is enough to realize that it is not a glamorous life, but one that is interesting with its own challenges, especially in terms of maintaining relationships.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Comments

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog