The Best of Antrobus: Tales of Diplomatic Misadventure

Lawrence Durrell

Jun 2012 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

DIVDIVThe finest of Lawrence Durrell’s classic short stories of diplomatic mischief/divDIV
/divDIVDark is the day when culture comes to Sczbog. The capital of Vulgaria, nestled snugly behind the Iron Curtain, has long been devoid of higher thought, and that is the way the men in the British embassy like it. But when the French embassy gives a lecture on literature, it ignites a chain reaction of unwanted cultural exchange, subjecting the King’s men to endless nights of Dutch poetry, Japanese theater, and Swiss yodeling. Extricating themselves from this high-minded mess will take a miracle of a most unpolitic kind./divDIV /divDIVThis is a typical incident in the long and colorful career of Antrobus, diplomat in his Majesty’s service. In these pages, he confronts waltzing ambassadors, half-mad press secretaries, and a gruesome Kurdish circumcision. Through it all, he and his men stay calm, knowing that the surest way to cause a diplomatic incident is to make the mistake of attempting diplomacy. /div/div

About the author

DIVDIVBorn in Jalandhar, British India, in 1912 to Indian-born British colonials, Lawrence Durrell was a critically hailed and beloved novelist, poet, humorist, and travel writer best known for the Alexandria Quartet novels, which were ranked by the Modern Library as among the greatest works of English literature in the twentieth century. A passionate and dedicated writer from an early age, Durrell’s prolific career also included the groundbreaking Avignon Quintet, whose first novel, Monsieur (1974), won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and whose third novel, Constance (1982), was nominated for the Booker Prize. He also penned the celebrated travel memoir Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (1957), which won the Duff Cooper Prize. Durrell corresponded with author Henry Miller for forty-five years, and Miller influenced much of his early work, including a provocative and controversial novel, The Black Book (1938). Durrell died in France in 1990. /divDIV /div
/div