Author(s): Robert Bowker

Issues/Current Affairs

TWO BOOKS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE AND BOTH EMINENTLY WORTH THE PURCHASE… After 50 years as an Australian diplomat, UN official, intelligence analyst, academic and company director working in and on the Middle East, Bob Bowker enjoys unique insights into the challenges, professional and personal, of representing Australia in the Arab world. In this occasionally light-hearted professional memoir, revealing something of the person behind the diplomat, he sets out his views and reflections on major Middle East issues and into what makes diplomacy in the Arab world effective. He also captures the complexity, the drama, the ambiguity and sometimes the absurdity of certain situations he faced as an Australian ambassador in the Arab world. -A sacked local staff member in Syria was found to be an informer for the secret police. -Overnight, a shipload of Australian sheep became Bulgarian -A judge in Sudan successfully prosecuted his own case in a murder trial. -As demonstrators hurled stones and bottles toward his office, women in his microenterprise program in Gaza sold soft drinks to the crowd.