Diplomatic Baggage

The beloved Sunday Times bestseller - a touching, hilarious, often outrageous memoir of home-making and family adventures in the world's furthest outposts'Hilarious, and utterly beguiling - it’s a complete treat to be in Keenan’s witty and open-hearted company' Esther Freud'Deliciously effervescent' Sunday Times 'Brigid writes like a dream ... fabulous' Joanna Lumley'Irresistible' Mail on SundayWhen Sunday Times fashion journalist Brigid Keenan married the love of her life in the late Sixties, she had little idea of the rollercoaster journey they would make around the world together. For he was a diplomat - and Brigid found herself the smiling face of the European Union in locales ranging from Kazakhstan to Trinidad, and asking herself questions she never thought she'd have to ask. How do you throw a buffet dinner during a public mourning period in Syria? Where do you track down dog fat in Almaty? And how do you entertain guests in a Nepalese chicken shed? Negotiating diplomatic protocol, difficult teenagers, homesickness, frustrated career aspirations, witch doctors, and giant jumping spiders, Brigid muddles determinedly through - with no shortage of mishaps on the way. 'There are not many books that have actually made me cry from laughing, but this is one of them' Sunday Times

Perfect ... surprising, astute, brilliantly observed and very human, Thirty years of far-flung postings later, she has acquired enough farcical experiences to make this memoir irresistible, A wonderful picaresque take on the travails of expat life, and an absolutely delicious read ... There are not many books that have actually made me cry from laughing, but this is one of them, Wonderfully funny and mischievous ... It really did make me laugh out loud. Brigid Keenan is quite as hilarious a comic invention as Bridget Jones, only she's REAL, Life is what you make of it - you can't just sit there and let it happen to you - you've got to grab opportunities with both hands, or you risk boredom at least, depression and deathbed regrets at worst. Women have not been raised to understand the importance of this. Brigid Keenan rams the message home with hilarity. This is an important book, written by a very funny writer

Brigid Keenan is an author and journalist. She has worked as an editor on Nova magazine, the Observer and the Sunday Times. She has published two fashion histories as well as Travels in Kashmir, Damascus: Hidden Treasures of the Old City, the bestselling Diplomatic Baggage, Packing Up and Full Marks for Trying. Brigid Keenan is a founding board member of the Palestine Festival of Literature. She has spent most of her life in far-flung diplomatic postings, but now lives with her husband in Pimlico and Somerset; they have two daughters and four grandchildren.