Book: Part-Time Diplomat

The new book "Part-Time Diplomat" follows the path of a blogger from Fokionos Negri to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

With a borrowed Canon around his neck, like a tourist on safari, he boards government jets to Belgrade and Pristina and watches the Balkan march of "European and Euro-Atlantic integration."

He finds himself, almost by accident, in meetings with World Bank officials, among Foreign Ministers on the sidelines of summits, and crossing the famous "corridor of diplomacy" — in the UN supermarket.

Through vivid episodes and with a humorous eye, an unlikely "diplomat" compiles daily "International Press Reviews," sets up the Ministry's first social media accounts, and learns every acronym, metonym and abbreviation — and, most importantly, when a word absolutely must be put in quotation marks.

Three Ministers, two governments, and trips to Vienna, Geneva, Moscow, New York and Hong Kong. He enters the system as a "foreign body" and observes it wide-eyed, trying to decode the "wooden language" of diplomacy: the name issue with FYROM, the Cyprus question, Greek-Turkish relations.

A humorous narrative essay, a chronicle of politics without arrogance, that lights up the years 2008–2011 from the inside — a singular period of contemporary history.

The author had the honour of speaking with Ambassador Daniel Fried, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, while writing this book.

*The Book is written in Greek

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