Diplomatka – Fricke Lucy (2023)

Fred is an experienced and ambitious German diplomat. A woman who is never rattled, who feels at home everywhere and nowhere. In Montevideo, however, she encounters a challenge for the first time in her career, is recalled to Berlin, and subsequently transferred as a consul to politically turbulent Istanbul, which is her biggest challenge yet. She soon finds herself caught up in the whirlwind of political events, and after meeting a Kurdish woman who is unjustly imprisoned by the Turkish regime, she begins to tread on thin ice. The uncompromising reality of contemporary Turkey leads Fred for the first time in her life to consider that diplomacy sometimes simply isn't enough. In her new brilliant novel, which is as witty as it is bitter, Lucy Fricke tells the story of a diplomat who loses faith in diplomacy — and also what is most important in her profession: patience. Amidst secret services and German-Turkish cooperation, between the possibility of a romantic relationship and the loneliness of a homeless person, Fred encounters the boundaries of friendship, the rule of law, and the European idea. A novel not only about the art of diplomacy. – Published with the support of the Goethe Institute.