In the Name of Diplomacy
Usha Hemmadi
THE UGLY AMBASSADOR by Krishnan Srinivasan Har-Anand Publications, Delhi, 2004, 279 pp., 250.00
January 2004, volume 28, No 1

Krishnan Srinivasan has worked at high levels in the Foreign Service and the Commonwealth Secretariat. He has spent several years in Africa where he seems to have acquired an insider’s perspective into the shuffle and elbowing that go by the name of diplomacy in most countries. This is Srinivasan’s second book, which he describes as his prequel to The Eccentric Effect, published in 2001.The novel is set during the the era of the Cold War, in Southern Africa, in Mlanbule, capital of Cunenia. President Christopher Manda is a shadowy figure, whose sole function seems to be to provide a target for the dissident forces in his state. These are led by Tom Mazabuka, an ambitious man of political acumen and leader of SALM (struggle for African Liberation Movement).

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