Steve Toltz

It's published by Penguin Books.

It's been great to chat again today.

On ABC Radio National, this is the book show.

And Ian Kemmish is here now.

He's a former Australian diplomat and now a novelist.

And he's lent into his diplomatic background, particularly his memories of war in Yugoslavia in the 90s, for his first work of fiction.

It's called Two Islands.

Hi, Ian.

So as a diplomat, Ian, where have you worked?

I mean, what was your day-to-day role during that period of time?

What were you actually doing?

What kind of things did you see?

Well, that's a wonderful thing.

I mean, this is a pretty complicated conflict because it was a conflict with three sides, Ian.

Was it ever a simple matter of these are the good guys and these are the bad guys?

Yeah.

Ian Kemmish, I'm so interested in your journey from diplomat to writer.

It did occur to me that as a diplomat, you know, you're obviously dealing in facts, but it's also about crafting a narrative around those facts, right?

Like, I'm interested to know how much storytelling is involved in diplomacy.

So yeah, you've always had this storytelling ability, but I guess now with the shift into fiction, you can fully embrace it now and you can shake off any commitment to truth-telling, I guess.