Description
Sent as a bumbling reporter to Ishmaelia, a fictional East African state on the brink of crisis, William Boot is determined to secure the kind of headline that will elevate his career—only to discover that competence is less important than access, appearances, and the appetite for sensational “news.” As he navigates shifting alliances, colonial power dynamics, and the machinery of propaganda, Boot’s well-meaning blunders collide with the ambitions of empires and the self-interest of those who profit from instability. Evelyn Waugh’s sharp, word-perfect satire turns on the era’s anxieties—declining old-world privilege, the rise of corporate and political “new aristocracies,” and the way revolutionary ideologies and foreign interventions are used as leverage on distant peoples. With richly observed irony and meticulously detailed scenes, this modern classic skewers the media’s relentless pursuit of a scoop while exposing how easily truth can be bent into spectacle.
Available Editions
paperback
Penguin Books Ltd
Published Dec 7, 2000
240 pages
ISBN: 9780141184029
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Details
First Published
1938
Language
eng
Content Warnings
No content warnings identified.