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The Polish Ambassador

Stanislaw Palewski is the Polish ambassador in Istanbul, Yashim’s old friend.

Here’s how he appeared in The Janissary Tree:

Yashim and Palewski were unlikely friends, but they were firm ones. ‘We are two halves, who together become whole, you and I,’ Palewski had once declared, after soaking up more vodka than would have been good for him were it not for the fact, which he sternly upheld, that only the bitter herb it contained could keep him sane and alive. ‘I am an ambassador without a country and you – a man without testicles.’ Yashim had pointed out that Palewski might, at a pinch, get his country back, but the Polish Ambassador had waved him away with a loud outbreak of sobs. ‘About as likely as you growing balls, I’m afraid. Never. Never. The bastards!’ Soon after that he had fallen asleep, and Yashim had employed a porter to carry him home on his back…

My children found this image on the net: I think it could be him.

What do you think?

Judging a book by…its cover

Faber’s artwork for the UK edition has popped up on my screen! I like it enormously, just as I liked the covers of the first two Yashim novels, The Janissary Tree and The Snake Stone. They manage to look period and fun at the same time: bold colours, strong motifs, and a striking family resemblance, too. I get the feeling that the designers enjoyed themselves here, don’t you?

A silhouette in a lighted window. A gondola. And a man in an extravagant turban, clutching a painting. It’s as if clues are being dropped even before you open the book.

The End

Link here to www.jasongoodwin.net.

You know your book’s done when those two words appear at the bottom of the page.

Triumph – or disaster?

I can’t tell. Sometimes I think that finishing a book is the literary equivalent of a one-night stand: breakfast is yet to come. That’s when you get to see your work in proof – the whole book set in type, like a real book. That’s often when you realise if a section of dialogue is flat, a description jars the pace of the narrative, or the story is moving too fast.

That’s when you feel like a sculptor, too, working happily on clay. It’s still yours to shape.

In The Bellini Card Yashim’s old friend Palewski, Polish Ambassador to the Sublime Porte (the Ottoman Court) is sent to Venice to track down a lost painting of Mehmed II.

I examine the proofs and I wonder – does Yashim enter this story the way I want? It’s clear, on this printed page: yes, it works. It makes me smile.

Just a few others have read The Bellini Card. And they smiled, too.