Artists, Writers, and Diplomats’ Wives


Book Description

In Artists, Writers, and Diplomats' Wives: Impressions of Women Travelers in Imperial Russia, the experiences and impressions of sixteen European and North American women who both lived and traveled in Russia during times of peace and war come alive. All these women had their own reasons for going to Russia. Some went with their husband who settled there, others went to paint the aristocracy, to help the lepers or report on the Russian Revolution of 1917. Their experiences and observations of Russian political, social, and cultural life led them to write letters and books and keep journals and diaries about what they saw and how they responded to it---both positively and negatively.




The Ambassador's Wife


Book Description

From a real-life ambassador's wife and the acclaimed author of Exile Music comes a harrowing novel about the kidnapping of an American woman in the Middle East and the heartbreaking choices she and her husband each must make in the hope of being reunited. When bohemian artist Miranda meets British ambassador Finn in the ancient stone streets of an Islamic city, the course of her life alters in extraordinary ways. Their marriage gives her the luxury to paint whenever she wants, a staff to wait on her, and a young daughter she adores, but she loses the freedom to wander where she likes and to meet the Muslim women she is secretly teaching to paint. Her husband also makes Miranda a target: One sunny afternoon while hiking in the mountains, she is brutally kidnapped. As Finn struggles to save his family and his career, and Miranda grows close to a stranger’s child in captivity, the secrets he and Miranda have each sought to hide place them and those who trust them in peril. Not even freedom could restore the happiness that once was theirs.




Diplomatic Baggage


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When Sunday Times fashion journalist Brigid Keenan married the love of her life in the late Sixties, little idea did she have of the rollercoaster journey they would make around the world together - with most things going horribly awry while being obliged to keep the straightest face and put their best feet forward. For he was a diplomat - and Brigid found herself the smiling face of the European Union in locales ranging from Kazakhstan to Trinidad. Finding herself miserable for the first time in a career into which many would have long ago thrown the towel, she found herself asking (during a farewell party for the Papal Nuncio): was it worth it? As this stream of it-really-happened-to-me stories shows, it most certainly was - if only for our vicarious bewilderment at how exactly you throw a buffet dinner during a public mourning period in Syria, remain viable as a fashion journalist when taste-wise you are three seasons out of it and geographically a world away, make people believe that there are actually terrible things going on in paradise, be a good mother and save some of the finest architecture in Damascus and Brussels from demolition - seemingly all simultaneously.




Embassy Wife


Book Description

"A smart, sparkling novel that is one part social satire, one part travelogue . . . Comical and cool.” —Oprah Daily In Katie Crouch's thrilling novel Embassy Wife, two women abroad search for the truth about their husbands—and their country. Meet Persephone Wilder, a displaced genius posing as the wife of an American diplomat in Namibia. Persephone takes her job as a representative of her country seriously, coming up with an intricate set of rules to survive the problems she encounters: how to dress in hundred-degree weather without showing too much skin, how not to look drunk at embassy functions, and how to eat roasted oryx with grace. She also suspects her husband is not actually the ambassador’s legal counsel but a secret agent in the CIA. The consummate embassy wife, she takes the newest trailing spouse, Amanda Evans, under her wing. Amanda arrives in Namibia mere weeks after giving up her Silicon Valley job so her husband, Mark, can have his family close by as he works on his Fulbright project. But once they’re settled in the sub-Saharan desert, Amanda sees clearly that Mark, who lived in Namibia two decades earlier, has other reasons for returning. Back in the safety of home, the marriage had seemed solid; in the glaring heat of the Kalahari, it feels tenuous. And the situation grows even more fraught when their daughter becomes involved in an international conflict and their own government won’t stand up for her. How far will Amanda go to keep her family intact? How much corruption can Persephone ignore? And what, exactly, does it mean to be an American abroad when you’re not sure you understand your country anymore? Propulsive and provocative, Embassy Wife asks what it means to be a human in this world, even as it helps us laugh in the face of our own absurd, seemingly impossible states of affairs.







The Woman's Journal


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Library of Congress Subject Headings


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Library of Congress Subject Headings: F-O


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Elizabeth Craven: Writer, Feminist and European


Book Description

Elizabeth Craven’s fascinating life was full of travel, love-affairs and scandals but this biography, the first to appear for a century, is the only one to focus on her as a writer and draw attention to the full range of her output, which raises her stature as an author considerably. Born into the upper class of Georgian England, she was pushed into marriage at sixteen to Lord Craven and became a celebrated society hostess and beauty, as well as mother to seven children. Though acutely conscious of her relative lack of education, as a woman, she ventured into writing poetry, stories and plays. Incompatibility and infidelities on both sides ended her marriage and she had to move to France where, living in seclusion, she wrote the little-known feminist work Letters to Her Son. In the years that followed, she travelled extensively all over Europe and turned her letters into a travelogue which is one of her best-known works. On her return she went to live in Germany as the companion and eventually second wife of the Margrave of Ansbach. At his court she organised and appeared in theatricals, and wrote several more plays of great interest, including The Modern Philosopher. In 1792 she and the Margrave settled in England, where they were never fully accepted by the more strait-laced pillars of society but mixed with all the musicians and actors and the more rakish of the Regency set. Craven continued to put on her own theatricals and write for the theatre. In her old age, she moved to Naples where she passed her time sailing, gardening and writing her Memoirs. Even in her final years, scandal dogged her, and Craven made her feminist principles and criticisms of the laws of marriage apparent through her involvement in the notorious divorce case of Queen Caroline.




The Diplomat's Wife


Book Description

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER One woman faces danger, intrigue, and love in the aftermath of World War II in this unforgettable novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Girls of Paris. 1945. Marta Nederman has barely survived the brutality of a Nazi concentration camp, where she was imprisoned for her work with the Polish resistance. Lucky to have escaped with her life, she meets Paul, an American soldier, who gives her hope of a happier future. The two make a promise to meet in London, but Paul is in a deadly plane crash and never arrives. Finding herself pregnant and alone in a strange city, Marta finds comfort with a kind British diplomat, and the two soon marry. But Marta’s happiness is threatened when the British government seeks her help to find a Communist spy—an undercover mission that resurrects the past with far-reaching consequences. Set during a time of great upheaval and change, The Diplomat’s Wife, a gripping early work from Pam Jenoff, is a story of survival, love and heroism, and a great testament to the strength of women. Don’t miss Pam Jenoff’s new novel, Code Name Sapphire, a riveting tale of bravery and resistance during World War II. Read these other sweeping epics from New York Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff: The Woman with the Blue Star The Lost Girls of Paris The Orphan’s Tale The Ambassador’s Daughter The Kommandant's Girl The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach The Winter Guest




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