Persona Non Grata

Farce and moral ambiguity in a pre-digital 1994 French diplomatic outpost in Balkan War-buffeted Eastern Europe.

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Young Michel-Ange never had to worry about much. Now the dignity of the French Republic is at stake in the ex-communist Balkan backwater of Gryaznia, where Paris suddenly expects him to hold the fort. Does the insouciant diplomatic dilettante have what it takes to stave off an international fiasco and personal humiliation? Merde, alors

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“Now you listen to me, petit, and listen well, so that we have no misunderstanding: I am a Sergent-Chef of the Légion Etrangère, verstehen? And when not sleeping, drinking, fucking or shitting, I kill people. That is my boulot, that is what I do.

“You, on the other hand, are sensé to be a diplomat, however half-arsed, and as such, and to the extent that you have any purpose in this life at all, it is to make precisely the kind of call I am hereby ordering you to make, right now. Compris?Have I made myself clear?” Michel-Ange’s face was blank – whether from paralyzed shock or mere bemusement was unknowable and, in any case, moot. “Bon. Execution. Et qu’ça saute. Hop it, my lad.”

(p. 193)

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"Few connoisseurs of failed diplomacy can hold a candle to P.N. Gwynne, whose latest hero, Michel-Ange de la Fassederad finds himself unworthily promoted to Chargé d'Affaires at the French Embassy in Gryaznia, which sounds like an over-the-counter remedy but is actually a disremembered capital somewhere in the Balkans. Almost immediately, Michel is fighting for self and country in a bureaucratic riot that unfolds in three languages. This is where Gwynne sprinkles his original English/French/Russian mix through the narrative as few writers can, a welcome and truly shameless salute to international affairs."

-- A.J. PANOS, Chargé d'Affaires, U.S. Embassy, Bangui, Central African Republic

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"Gwynne is satiric and deliriously funny. He has a fine feeling for the absurdity of things. His sensibility, however disturbing, is always expressed with wit. Mr. Gwynne can write."-- THE NEW YORK TIMES

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"P.N. Gwynne has a sharp ear for accents and a quick eye for the ridiculous."

-- THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

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"Gwynne packs his novels with a very funny assortment of types who speak in accurate, ingeniously spelled dialogue." -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

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The pseudonymous P.N. GWYNNE is a much-traveled American businessman who's lived and worked throughout sub-Saharan Africa, where he also served for several years as Honorary U.K. Consul. Earlier, as a U.S. Army 1L...