[Online Event] Cables, Novels and Nobels: The Journey of Diplomacy and Literature 

Exploring the Intersection of Diplomacy and Literature: Insights from the ‘Tables, Novels, and Novels’ Online Event

The online event “Tables, Novels, and Novels: The Journey of Diplomacy and Literature,” co-hosted by the Diplo Foundation and co-edited by Ambassadors Amr Aljowaily and Stefano Baldi, explored the intersection of diplomacy and literature. The session, which attracted a significant number of participants, demonstrated a keen interest in understanding how these two disciplines intertwine.

Ambassador Paolo Trichilo presented his book, which profiles eight diplomats who have won the Nobel Prize for Literature. His work offers a comprehensive look into their lives, showcasing how their literary pursuits and diplomatic careers intersected. Trichilo emphasized the value of reading a host country’s literature as a diplomat, as it provides deep insights into the nation’s psyche and culture.

Ambassador Mohamed Tawfik discussed the challenges of balancing his diplomatic career with his passion for writing novels. He pointed out that fiction serves as an outlet that is distinct from the rigors of diplomatic work, allowing for creative expression without the constraints of officialdom. Tawfik also highlighted the differences between diplomatic and literary writing, with the former requiring unambiguous communication to avoid misunderstandings, while the latter invites diverse interpretations from readers.

The session addressed the changing perceptions of diplomats who are also writers. It was noted that the emergence of public diplomacy and social media has blurred the traditional boundaries between public and official roles, enabling diplomats to engage more freely in writing.

Jovan Kurbalija introduced the “Kaizen publication style,” which incorporates artificial intelligence into the writing and publishing process. This approach recognizes the proliferation of AI-generated content and identifies a unique space for human creativity and contemplation. Kurbalija suggested that diplomatic services should harness internal AI to tap into the wealth of knowledge and experience within diplomatic communications.

The organizers announced that the event was the first in a series, with subsequent discussions planned to further delve into the topic of diplomats as writers. The next session is scheduled for the 2nd of October.

Throughout the discussion, participants shared insights on the similarities between diplomats and writers, particularly their need to empathize with and understand different cultures. Modern writing was said to require a component of knowledge communication, with fiction offering readers enriching experiences that go beyond what self-help books can provide.

The conversation also touched on the potential impact of philosophical traditions on diplomats’ worldviews and the role literature could play in diplomatic negotiations. Additionally, the session highlighted the diverse literary contributions of diplomats from various countries and the idea of exhibitions to display the thematic and cultural richness of their works.

In summary, “Tables, Novels, and Novels: The Journey of Diplomacy and Literature” provided a thought-provoking exploration of the synergies between diplomacy and literature, the challenges faced by diplomats who write, and the evolving nature of diplomatic communication in the era of artificial intelligence.

Amr Aljowaily:
Very good colleagues. Good morning. Good afternoon. Greetings. This is the safest greeting since we are in different time zones. And having said that, I’d like to, on behalf of Ambassador Stefano Baldi and myself, we are the two co-editors of the page Diplomats as Writers, hosted and initiated by the Diplo Foundation. I’d like to warmly, warmly welcome you to our session titled Tables, Novels, and Novels, the Journey of Diplomacy and Literature. We are very, very impressed by the number of participants who have expressed interest in attending this session. And that really means that this session hit a chord and it fills in a vacuum and it responds to the interest and the intellectual curiosity of us all. What do diplomats have to do with literature, with writers, or maybe it has all to do that the very essence and profession of diplomacy is related to writing, is related to literature. We’re very, very fortunate to have two distinguished speakers. today who will be introduced in turn and I am sure that we will all learn and enjoy from their interventions. Until then, I would warmly invite you to in the chat to write your name and where you’re currently stationed or where you’re from. I already see Mozambique, Botswana, Philippines, Rome, so it does not only cut across the Mediterranean from which we have the pleasure to be. The two speakers and the two moderators actually happen to be from the north and the south of the Mediterranean, but also across the world, so we’re very, very pleased with them. Allow me quickly to introduce the idea. This is the first of a series, so please hang on and continue to attend and contribute and participate and provide feedback and ideas and thoughts on this very interesting topic of diplomats as writers. So this is the first of a series and we hope to actually conclude it maybe bimonthly, so every two months, the series of webinars of online events, but we also have a permanent presence, more or less, which is the presence through the page Diplomats as Writers and if Zoom does not fail me, I’m quickly going to share the page Diplomats as Writers. I hope you see it now on the screen. Oops, no, that’s actually the event for today. Here is the page Diplomats as Writers, which is co-edited by my dear friend and colleague Ambassador Stefano Baldi and myself. You will notice that this is an introduction page, but equally interesting on it is that it has three strands. It has three alleys, maybe, but it has three journeys, basically, that we invite you to go through. One, as you see here, is Egyptian diplomats, the other is Italian diplomats, and the third is Swiss diplomats. This is not an exhaustive list. I promise you, and I’m sure Ambassador Stefano would promise you as well, that this list hopefully will include at least 193 Member States of the United Nations. Well, we’ll take it step by step. Now we have three, we’ll probably have 190 more to come, whereby we really try to document and to promote and to feature and to explore together diplomats who have taken the pen and yes, written cables, written telegrams, but also written novels and other forms of literature and writing. So I’ll maybe start quickly by the page on Egyptian diplomats. As you see, it is in Arabic, but part of it is in text, so you can easily access the text and hopefully use machine translation to help through. The first item, as you see here, is about the current project that I’m personally undertaking. I’m extremely excited about it, which is following the steps of Stefano Balbi and other of my colleagues and writing in a geographic study of Egyptian diplomats who took the path of writing. We are halfway through, if not much more than that. We have documented more than 1,000 publications by Egyptian diplomats in different fields of writing. So if you open that, and this is going to be a pinned post, you will see some basics about what the study looks like and an invitation to you to contribute to it. Then you’re going to see successive posts which will be updated regularly, of which, as you see, the first is a short contribution about what do diplomats writing, how do they contribute to diplomatic studies, so the link between theory and practice. Here you would see a very interesting also review of the writings of Egyptian diplomats during one year. That was part of the Cairo Book Fair seminar that hosted on the topic. Then the one before it was actually, as you see here, those are two foreign ministers, former foreign ministers of Egypt, two former ambassadors and pyramid representatives of Egypt, who actually also shared their view about writing and diplomacy and so on and so forth. This all started by an activity that we hosted in Cairo, but it was about Stefano Baldi and his team hosting an event to feature the writings by Italian diplomats. That was 2010, we’re now 2014. So it took 14 years to get here, and I’m sure that it will be an excellent start for what’s to continue. Later on, you will see here, I’ll quickly try to show this, is that there is a Facebook page that you’re most welcome, I hope that you can see it on the screen now, that you’re most welcome to subscribe to. It has at least all the covers of the book, not all the covers, but many of the book covers, front and back cover of books written by Egyptian diplomats. You will have the opportunity to subscribe for updates of this page, and we really invite you to interact with it, with ideas, with comments, with thoughts, and most importantly, with more literature to to document and to feature and to discuss. So this is very quickly the idea. Once again, it’s going to be hopefully bi-monthly online and 24 hours seven on the site. That was a quick introduction of the idea. Now I warmly invite my dear colleague Ambassador Stefano Baldi to introduce his book.

Stefano Baldi:
Thank you. Thank you very much, Amr. I think you introduced in the best possible way the idea and the event today. Of course, there should be many people to thank. We will skip that. But sadly, we have to thank Diplo’s team in general, because all this wouldn’t have been possible without this since the beginning. And those who will take the time to consult the pages that are now coming out of this Diplomat as Writers project will notice that most of the material which is available about diplomat, diplomat writers in the world collections have been published in the past or anyway have been helped in the realization by Diplo Foundation. And it’s still the case. There’s this great opportunity for us. So you mentioned that there was a presentation a long time ago in 2010 about this through the diplomatic looking glass, which is the English version of a book, which is La Pena Diplomatico, originally edited 20 years ago. So just to tell you, this is a long story, long research goes on, at least for Italian diplomats. And I’m always being happy to see that this could develop in many other countries, because, of course, the Diplomat as Writers, as we proved today, and we’ll keep showing in the next sessions, is not something related to one specific country or one specific region. And one fascinating issue that we will be able to go deeper and to discover is just how all this experiences, they have something in common while they are all different, because coming from different people of different countries. So I really hope that this will be also another beginning for this kind of analysis and research, having more and more information, more and more input. Of course, the most difficult thing will be, hopefully, to manage all this information. But then we will try to have some help from these new opportunities which are given to us by artificial intelligence, and also the normal physical knowledge of the diplo-team, not only artificial, this is very physical. So I’m sure we’ll go through. Just to give you an idea, when I talk about Italian diplomats who are writers, since this is the research which has been more developed up to now, I found in these 20 years, and still growing, nearly 1,415 books published by Italian diplomats who wrote after the Second World War, starting from 1945. I didn’t go back, even though we could have started from, of course, 1861. But I limited this to the Diplomats of the Republic, and these are 320 now, I think, authors, or even more, probably. I have the list. But this kind of research has generated many other opportunities. I will not go in depth, because I would like you to speak with the two hosts, two guests today. But just to give you an idea, which is along the lines of what Amr has just shown. I think it’s an interesting way to show the books through their covers and because not only because they are colored and very different, but because they really indicate some time themes or subjects which are particularly relevant. I made, I prepared an exhibition with covers of books written by Italian diplomats and that is with about 300 covers that I used and and I think it would be very nice in the future to have this exhibition not only related to Italian diplo books books written by diplomats, but you know from different countries with different panels, and I’m sure this is in our bucket list with AMRA to realize so that that would give an idea of diversity and could be easily you know used in different places. So there are many many ideas around us. There are many other, there are some other countries who have also done some publications collecting, that is for example one publication by the Greek diplomats of many years ago, something like 20 years ago again, which collected the diplomat writers. Every time there is this kind of collection you discover that this is this is more than a niche you know, this is always considered a niche, but I think it’s more if we go in depth. It’s even if we consider poetry or we consider literature narrative or we consider essays, you find really a very important number and qualitatively very much appreciated in the different countries. The only point is that we don’t know each other and so the critical mass sometimes is not there. So let’s hope that this will be the start for for more research and more knowledge and more exchange along these lines. So I think if Amr agrees that I could skip other general indications, we could just go to our two guests that we chose, and the order would be Paolo Trichilo and then Ambassador Mohamed Tafik. If you agree, Amr, I will continue and introduce my colleague and friend. He’s an Italian diplomat. We know each other since a long time with Paolo. And of course, you might think that we picked him for this premiere because he’s a friend of mine, which is already a good reason, I think, since I know many of the diplomatic authors in Italy. But in fact, that that’s not the main reason. The main reason for picking Paolo Trichilo, we thought that his recent book is Diplomatie e letteratura, Diplomacy and Literature. I think this can be shown. Yes. Gli otto diplomatici vincitori del premio Nobel per la letteratura, so that you hear a little bit of Italian, which is, of course, the eight diplomats who won the Nobel Prize for literature. I think that’s the best book to give you an idea, to have a starting point to discuss on diplomats as writers. Of course, we start from the top, we could say, because we start from those diplomats who won a Nobel Prize. We don’t know if there will be others in the future, of course, we hope, yes. But that’s not the main point. The main point is that, as I said before, we are not talking about a niche and not about a niche. even in terms of quality of recognition of writers. So this book, that’s the book we will talk about, but let me first say a few words about Paolo Tricchio so that you know a little bit more about him. I think he is also, from the point of view of diplomatic career and diplomatic experience, one of the best examples, because he has done it all. All the different experiences in diplomacy, when he was posted abroad, but even in Rome, he has done. He was consul when he started, he was consul in Moulouse, then he was consular in, commercial consular in Ankara. So the bilateral diplomacy, then he also had an experience in multilateral diplomacy because he was in OECD in Paris, and then he was already ambassador in Ljubljana, and now he’s ambassador in Zagreb, again bilateral in the region. So he really has covered all the different kinds of diplomacy, and even in the ministry he has done many different activities and achievements. He was in the political affairs, he was in some regional affairs with the Mediterranean, he was a diplomatic counsellor of the Minister of Labour. So he was in the personnel, so dealing with the structure, really he could talk about many, many different things, but he is also a writer, and he wrote some other books before this. He wrote a book about his experience in Moulouse, again one day we will have time to speak about why we should write, this is my opinion of course, about our experiences, he did it. in a way. He wrote about human rights, because he had been dealing with human rights for a long time, and he wrote this recent book, which is Diplomacy and Literature. So, this is just to give you a general idea on his personality. But now that I’ve said and I’ve talked so much, I would like to start asking him a few questions about the book, about the idea, about his experience. And of course, about the book, I would like to start with something which is a very classical question, which doesn’t mean that I don’t have original questions, but I think this is very important in this case, because it can introduce us in the book, which is, you know, why did you decide to write such a book? How it came to your mind? Of course, it’s not rocket science, something related to us. But at the end of the day, there is no book, at least to my knowledge, then maybe we will discover from the chat that there is already, which covered this kind of issue, which is very relevant. So, how did it come to your mind? How did it happen? And I’m glad you did, of course. Thank you, Paolo, for being here.

Paolo Trichilo:
Thank you very much, Stefano. Thank you very much, of course, to all the organizers that made this possible for inviting me at this inaugural session of your series. And thanks also to the people that joined us online. I’m impressed by the number and also the number of people and number of countries and continents that are now following this meeting. So, thank you very much. I hope I’ll be able to meet your expectations, if you have any. Well, the reply to your kind question is that I have tried to put together two things that I like very much. One is diplomacy, that I still like, after being almost 35 years now in this job, and I never regretted this choice to go for this career. And the literature is one of my favorite ways to spend my time, not the only one, but I really enjoy very much reading. So after so long a time spent reading, I also thought I could write something, but especially I wanted to try and put together these two topics that are, at least for me, of great interest. And so it was in a way also to pay homage both to writers and to diplomats. And the best way to do that, I thought it was to combine people that have been doing, have been able to put together these two ways of life, so to say, and they have done it to the point of winning the Nobel Prize for literature. So I have been choosing these criteria in a strict way, if you wish, because I thought otherwise it would have been difficult to pin it down to an objective line. Of course, this is an arbitrary choice. You may like it or not. You may agree or disagree. But I also was encouraged by the fact, as you mentioned, that indeed, at least according to my research before writing this book, there’s not been really a book devoted to this question of literature and diplomacy, putting together the eight winners of the Nobel Prize of literature that have also been diplomats. And I’ve been so strict to the point that I have put 8 1⁄2, that is, Henri-Louis Berson, because I have not considered him a full diplomat in a legal way, even though he has won in 1927 the Nobel Prize for Literature, but he has performed diplomatic functions, extremely important, going in 1917 to meet President of the US, Wilson, to convince him to enter war on the side of France against Germany, but especially he’s been the first ever president of the International Commission for Intellectual Cooperation that has been the frontrunner of UNESCO that has come years later, even though he has performed this role in a personal way and not as a delegate of France. And so this journey has taken me to find eight people, two from Chile, very interesting, Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda, who may be among the eight, is definitely the most famous one, a Yugoslav or Bosnian author, as we would say maybe today, Ivo Andric, a Greek one, Yorgos Seferis, another representative of Latin America, Miguel Ángel Asturias from Guatemala, then we have Czeslaw Miłosz from Poland, and the last one is Octavio Paz from Mexico, sorry it’s not the last one, I forgot, Alexis Léger, Nom de Plume, Saint John Perse, that was really a poet. rather than a book writer. So these are the eight and a half, if we count also a really person, but I really tried to stick to very objective criteria. Also number price for literature, you may not be convinced that is the best benchmark possible for literature, but it is accepted, widely known, recognized. We know about the discussions, about the fact that the number of great writers have never been included among the awarded ones and that maybe certain, that on the contrary have been awarded, have not been necessarily the best according to certain critics but nonetheless, it is an objective criteria that has put together these two areas and I think it’s the best way to illustrate how diplomats can be great writers or it is really up to the reader or that great writers can also be very good diplomats.

Stefano Baldi:
I think, Paolo, if these criteria that you have chosen, it’s a very clear one in the sense for everybody. So everybody can understand what it is and this helps, I think, to pass the messages and to make it more understood. I would like to go back to something that you just mentioned on the nationalities of the winners. Because Amr before said that we would like one day to cover 193 countries which makes, if I’m not wrong, five continents. In this case, there are a limited number of continents which are represented. Because if you take them all in all, you have, of course, Europe, then you have Latin America and Central America. It depends on how you consider the two. But anyway, there are two or three. regions, let’s say, not more. Is there any reason why diplomats, only diplomats coming from these regions, they have had this recognition?

Paolo Trichilo:
I can give you my guess. It’s not a reason, for sure it’s not an official one, but my interpretation of this fact that we have four diplomats from Europe and four from Latin America is that those countries are those that have enjoyed the most the awards from Nobel Prize literature. We know what are the origins of the Nobel Prize for literature, so I know also about the discussion that it may have been biased toward certain areas, in particular those around the country that is giving the award. So we have to take it as it is. As I have said before, I’m not defending at all cost this criteria. I’m just explaining it in a way that makes it understandable and it is an objective one. There may be better ones and I have nothing against it. Someone else will develop different lines of interpretation. That said, it is true that if you see the list, there are, maybe sadly, a limited number of writers from Africa or from Asia, one from Egypt, since we are organizing this together with our Egyptian colleague. So in a way, this is also reflecting the general ratio of awards in favor of Europeans mostly and Latin American writers compared to writers from other continents in the world. If you allow me one question, one point that relates rather to chronology. This list of writers, diplomats ends in 1990. So it is 35 years ago, almost. So maybe these should lead us to reflect to the fact that while there was a golden age in the 60s and 70s, when most of these awards were given, in the last three decades and a half, no diplomat has been able to get a Nobel Prize for literature. So this is something that I leave open to discussion interpretation. I don’t know if it is because the commission of the Nobel Prize has not devoted enough attention to this category of writers or if diplomats have changed their ways and they are, yes, writing maybe in a different way than before. These I would not be able to judge it. I just give it as a fact open to further discussion.

Stefano Baldi:
I must say in terms of prizes and awards, that according to my experience, which is very limited to Italy, since I know our colleagues who publish and sometime I get to know awards that are being granted to them. I noticed that, of course, the number of awards which are distributed, it’s huge, I think in every country. But of this huge number, a certain number goes also to books published by diplomats, at least in Italy, which is quite encouraging. It’s not the Nobel Prize, of course, but of course, also the logic of Nobel Prize has evolved very much in time. Rightly so, I would say. So I’m not surprised. I have one last question if I can. because we still have some more time. And my last question comes from the diversity of the authors that you’ve mentioned, not only geographical, but also in terms of time, style, there’s so many diversity. By the way, let me tell you one thing about the book, because I didn’t mention anything about the book. Of course, the big limitation now is that this book currently is only available in Italian. I say currently because there’s a lot of pressure on Paolo to produce the English version. And I think he got it very well. Today is going to be another push, so it will. But the interesting thing is that each and every author is analyzed from the point of view of his life and his book production, all the works that he’s done. And there’s also an analysis of the diplomatic career. Some of them, they had a long one, some of them, they have a short, maybe Paolo will say this. So they’re all very different. And also at the end, you really have a chronology of the diplomatic career, which gives also the different places. So it’s short, but at the same time, it gives you really a wide picture of each and every author. So which one of these authors you felt closer to you? You felt, I mean, you did really study a lot about each one of them. Which one and for what reasons?

Paolo Trichilo:
Yes. Well, indeed, this book is a special biography of each of these writers and claims with their diplomatic career that in some cases, short, other lifelong careers, as you rightly mentioned. And OK, maybe I should explain why I would choose Octavio Paz and Yorgos Seferis as the ones that I felt closer for my personal subjectivity. Gabriela Mistral from Chile. By the way, all these bariographies are extremely interesting because those people have gone through very interesting times, to say the least, and they have had an impact on not only diplomacy, but also history, and sometimes the political life, not only of their countries, but also internationally. So, Gabriela Mistral is widely known for, she was a teacher for elementary school, and so, not surprisingly, she was really advocating the rights of the child, and she has been also developing certain declarations that later have been taken up by the League of Nations and United Nations. But she was an honorary consul all the time, and in any case, I think, having her there, this is, of course, not only in line with the Vienna Diplomatic Convention, but also a way to pay tribute to the honorary consuls that play an important role in diplomacy. Alexis Leger, alias Saint-Jean-Pierre, that is known especially for having opposed Hitler, and no less during the Munich conference in 1938, he spent basically all of his career in Paris, most of the time as Secretary General, so a very important role that he played. But I’ve been in the capital most of the time, so I cannot really feel very close to him from a personal point of view. Ivo Andrić, at the time of, initially, he followed, let’s say, the standard diplomatic career up to a point, and then he became also a member of parliament in Yugoslavia when he started. It was not Yugoslavia yet, it was the kingdom of Serbians, Croatians, and Slovenes, and so I cannot feel him particularly close. But Yonko Seferis is a very interesting case of someone that has started his career from third secretary till ambassador, in his case in London, so he’s been really a lifelong diplomat. He has also served in Ankara, one of the countries where I have also served, so I feel him close, and also I should pay tribute to him for his opposition to the military Greek junta, and at that point they even retired him, the passport, and they took some harsh measures against him for criticizing openly the military regime that at one point ruled Greece. Miguel Angel Asturias, another great personality, I would define him more like Pablo Neruda, mostly a writer that, let’s say, gave his availability also to be a diplomat. He couldn’t say no to the president. of the Republic, but also he played some very important political and diplomatic role, for instance, in 1954 when Guatemala tried to stop the invasion of the country that was previously decided by the Organization of American States. Another adventurous life, and I would encourage to know Miguel Angel Asturias’ life. The same goes for Pablo Neruda, as I said, the most famous one, but he started, by the way, as an honorary consul, he wanted to travel in East Asia, what is now Indonesia, and Rangoon was now Yangon, the first post he had, and then after years and a lot of political struggle, as a senator in Chile, he delivered a great speech, at one point it is reported in the appendix, but I cannot feel him particularly close. The Polish Czeslaw Miłosz, he was a cultural attaché, he spent a limited time in diplomacy in Washington and Paris, and after he was the first to leave, he got in France political asylum. He tried to, let’s say, to manage, but in the end, the suppression during the communist regime of freedom of expression was too much for him, so he got this asylum from France, and later he became a professor of Slavic literature in the United States. And Octavio Paz is another case that feels close to me, like Yorgos Seferis, because he started his career. By the way, he’s the only one where I could easily found from the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs website his diplomatic life. In all other cases, it’s not been easy to reconstruct their posts and the chronology. That implied a lot of research, but I’m very happy I did it from the diplomatic point of view to give them this line of chronology and events. And he has done all of his career until becoming ambassador in India, another country where I have also served. He was spied throughout his life and career by the Secret Services of Mexico, as it has been revealed by El País. Another interesting life because finally he became very critical towards an event that happened just before the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968. So basically he retired or rather he was invited to leave the diplomatic career at that point in time. So all lives are very interesting, I must say, sometimes adventurous. And if you see the Pablo Larraín movie about Neruda and the time then when he escapes from Chile through the Andes mountains to reach Argentina. That’s one example.

Stefano Baldi:
Yeah, I can only but confirm that if you read all the lives and thank you for illustrating very, very quickly, even though now I have to pass the the responsibility to Amr to listen to Ambassador Tafik, but it was really extremely interesting to hear about all these colleagues and writers. Amr, now it’s your turn. Thank you.

Amr Aljowaily:
Thank you very much, my dear Stefano, for moderating that. Ambassador Trichilo, it was great to hear from you. Thank you very much for sharing the insights of your book. Since it’s Italian, we can’t access it now, but I think there is a promise to have more versions and I’m sure even Egyptian publishers will be happy to publish it in Arabic. If you’re ever interested, we’ll be happy to work that out. So Ambassador Tafik, as you just heard, all the Nobel laureates, none were from Africa or from the Arab world. So we really hope you would be one of the nominees and not only the nominee, but one of the candidates. Ambassador Mohamed Tawfik is multi-talented. He is an engineer, he’s a diplomat, and he is now a novelist. Well, he has been a novelist actually because he did start to publish while he was still active in the career. So he has degrees in engineering, international law, diplomacy, and international relations. He’s been to numerous countries and numerous continents, Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. As a career diplomat, he spent his professional journey from 1982 to 2016, working on issues of disarmament, labor, human rights. But particularly, he headed the Egyptian mission as ambassador to Washington, D.C. from 2012 to 2015. And for those of you who follow Egyptian history, this was a profound transformation of the country during those few years. He is a member of quite a few writing syndicates. and associations, including the Egyptian Writers Union, PEN International, and other. We did publish in Arabic three volumes of stories, The White Butterflies, Till the Break of Dawn, and Agamiste, but also some of the books were translated to English, including The Day the Moon Fell, A Night in Life of, Abdel Tawad, Tutu, A Naughty Boy Called Ander, and Candy Girl. Now, listen to this, colleagues. So I did mention he’s an engineer, he’s a diplomat, he’s a novelist, but he actually decided to self-translate those very same novels that I just read, and some of the English translations, like Murder in the Tower of Happiness and Candy Girl, were actually chosen, were published in English by the American University in Cairo Press, and were chosen to be the inaugural launch of one book, one conversation, one community. Later on, also, Candy Girl was chosen by a committee made up of students, faculty members, and administration because of its potential in engaging the community in inquisition and provoking discussion. Books haven’t only been translated to English, but also to Swedish, such as Candy Girl, and his latest novel is The Scorpion’s Whisperer, published by Dar El Ain in 2021, together, I think, with Stoneflower. So as you can see, he’s a renowned Egyptian diplomat, now also a renowned novelist. I do share with Ambassador two things, that I served in two countries where he did serve, in Washington and in Geneva, but I haven’t inherited his writing in novels. Hopefully, maybe soon. sometime soon. So Ambassador Tawfik, very happy to have you around. And let’s start with thematic questions. And particularly, I want to quote from an interview that was published with you in 2014. And the interview very conveniently was titled, A Double Life. So a double life of a novelist and a diplomat. But where you actually said, and I quote, fiction is something that is totally unrelated to my work. And therefore, it does not require permissions and clearances. If I were to go into nonfiction, it would be a bit trickier. So my question to you in five minutes, so we need now telegrams or cables rather than novels, is literally fiction then the outlet for talented diplomats interested in a writing career, or can there still be a balance between the requirements of the professional career and the ambition of what I could call reality writing, if we may call them so?

Mohamed Tawfik:
Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador Aljowaily. And I’d also like to thank Ambassador Baldy and the team at Diplo. I also find the presentation presented by Ambassador Trichilo extremely interesting. And I actually just had a quick search on some of the lives of some of the personalities included in that book. And unfortunately, I will look forward to reading the book once it’s out in English or once I learn Italian, whichever comes first. And anyway, what you can see right away is that there are lots of affinities. between the craft and the vision of a diplomat and that of a writer, but there’s also a certain tension between the two. And as I consider myself to be 100% of a diplomat and also 100% of a writer, and to try and achieve that is an enormous effort. But also it’s quite a daunting task because it’s a little bit like walking on a tightrope in a circus without a safety net. So I’ll give you an example. The excellent choice of a quotation, I think is very shrewd because it’s one of those quotations, one of the statements I made, of course, it was made to the media, that really has a story behind it. And the story behind it is a very interesting story. When I was ambassador in Australia, I wrote a novel, Candy Girl, and it’s about a secretive American intelligence agency whose role is to assassinate Arab scientists. And the scientists they chose to assassinate was an Egyptian who had worked in the Iraqi nuclear program. And they were worried that he would move on to Iran. So that’s the plot. Well, that’s, I mean, in a nutshell. When I wrote it, I had no idea that I would be posted as ambassador to the United States. But a revolution happened in Egypt, and they somehow decided that I was the right person to go to the United States after that revolution. Now, by some irony of fate, the English translation of that book came out as I arrived in Washington for my first posting in Washington, and in fact, about the same time as I presented credentials to President Obama. Now, it’s very interesting that from my first visit to the White House, to meet the staff of the White House, the National Security Advisor, the different assistants to the President, the first issue that they would raise was the issue of this book. And although, I mean, it was a very interesting time, I was representing Egypt at a time when Mohamed Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood was still starting his tenure, and there were lots of issues, lots of things happening in the region, and terrorism, and lots of stuff happening. But the most issue they wanted to raise was this issue of my novel. So I was particularly, it took an effort on my part to tell them, listen, I’m not accusing the United States of anything, I’m a professional ambassador, I’m not a troublemaker, I’m not here to disrupt relations. And in that context, I made the statement that you read. So really, what I was saying is, what I write is one thing, my career as a diplomat is a completely different story.

Amr Aljowaily:
Indeed, so fiction may be a way out for us to express ourselves without necessarily, overstepping over our professional diplomacy requirements. So my second question to you, Ambassador Tawfik, the title of today’s online event is Cables, Novels, and Novels. My question to you, is there a literary aspect in writing diplomatic cables and telegrams, such as storytelling? Or does such professional writing in the form of cables, telegrams, memos, policy notes, whatever you may call them, is by definition, cannot accommodate those creative writing aspects because they have to fill in the requirement of brevity, conciseness, and clarity. Have you identified different styles of professional diplomatic writing in your diplomatic career, which would have a literary dimension? And of course, when some of these cables get exposed to the public after the passage of certain years, then we can also discern this. So what do you think? Can we include this creativity in our diplomatic writing every day, or no, are these two different triages?

Mohamed Tawfik:
Again, you have put your finger on a very central issue. I would tackle this question from two angles. First angle is the question of language, and the second angle is the question of narrative. The question of language, I think a diplomat and a writer share this fascination with language. It’s the tool they use, it’s their primary tool. And they need to be in control of that tool to be able to perform their duties. So there’s definitely a fascination with this concept of le mot juste, finding the exact right word to express yourself. And this is at the heart of both professions really. And personally, I don’t make a distinction between writing a cable, writing an op-ed in a newspaper, or writing a speech, or writing a poem, or a novel. As far as language is concerned, the main issue is to choose the right language for the purpose that you have. And it is this capacity that enables the diplomat and the writer to perform their duties. However, there’s a very vast difference in the ways that they use this capacity. So the diplomat’s role is to express his idea to whoever it is he’s addressing, whether it is to his own government in a cable or to a foreign public in an op-ed, to address his ideas very clearly. In other words, there is only one meaning. that he would like the readership to get from his message. It would be a catastrophe if an ambassador or a diplomat sent a cable back home and they understood it in a different way from what he was expressing and then took an action that was not really what he recommended. It would be a catastrophe. So it’s very important, and even when a diplomat wants to be ambiguous, he has to be very careful how he chooses that particular kind of ambiguity. That’s not at all how a writer functions. A writer does not have a specific message he wants to send to the reader. What a writer is really communicating is a general sentiment, a general feeling of a certain spirit, and then the writer expects each reader to interpret that in a different way. So it’s the same tool but used differently. The second element that’s equally important is the element of narrative. Both diplomats and writers are masters or should be masters of narrative. When a diplomat addresses a foreign group, a foreign country, a foreign government, a foreign public, what he needs to do is to pass his message through their own narrative so they will accept it. So, for example, if I want to talk about Egypt to an evangelical group, I will start by showing how Egypt welcomed the young Jesus and the holy family. I wouldn’t start from that angle if I was speaking to an Islamic group. So obviously you have to know their narrative and put your message through that narrative. That’s exactly the opposite of what a writer does. A writer looks for the prevailing narrative and then challenges it. He looks for the roots of that narrative, the premises of that narrative, and very slyly, very indirectly, breaks that, challenges those premises and breaks down the argument. So it’s again the same tool but used in completely different ways.

Amr Aljowaily:
Thank you. So we are a bit over time but let me put one last question that is a telegraphic answer. You mentioned in many interviews that the secret that you have used in order to be able to get those two lives, those double lives of a writer, a novelist, and a diplomat, is the best use of time. May I ask a provocative question and I really hope to also hear from Ambassador Medvedchik. A provocative question is that in today’s busy daily schedules and information overload, some consider reading fiction and literature not necessarily the best use of time. Instead, they would opt for reading self-development writings or professional books that relate to their career or specialization. Is there now pressure to combine both by having literature rely on true stories or build on social, political, scientific realities? or do we still have a place for literature and fiction? One minute telegraphics.

Mohamed Tawfik:
Again, a very important point. I think modern writing has a very important research component. It has to also be able to communicate knowledge. So a reader will learn something that they did not know before. Of course, writing in general is about living someone else’s life in their circumstances and their conditions. And I think that works much better than self-help books. So I’m certainly encouraging people to read fiction. And I think this, at the end of the day, they will find that it’s much richer and that the time they put into it is worthwhile.

Amr Aljowaily:
Great, we can learn from fiction then and the writers can do also their research. So thank you very much. We ended right on time, which is very unusual for a whole set of speakers and moderators from the Mediterranean. I’m saying that because I’m one of them and I’m really, really proud to be from that region. So I hand them to my dear co-moderator, Stefano Baldi, Ambassador Stefano Baldi, and we’ll try to moderate one question, one each turn, including the chat questions. Ambassador Stefano Baldi.

Stefano Baldi:
Thank you, thank you, Amr. Thank you, Ambassador Mohamed. I think it was extremely interesting. And the only bad thing is that we would have liked to have more time. But now I hope with questions, other things will come up and will be interesting to hear and to learn from you too. I have also my own questions, but I… with them very much behind because I want to hear from others. And I know there’s been a lot of chat. I am, if you agree, I would, of course, open for questions coming up and showing people, but also using the chats, which was, I think, moving quite a lot, which there could be things. So I wonder if there is anybody already would like to come with any question live. So show your hand or ask to open your microphone. And I’m sure that our people will go for that. In the meantime, what we didn’t say is that also this is not being attended here live, but it’s also being attended on YouTube. So we have also a certain number who are on YouTube. But the good point about Zoom is that we can have some kind of interaction. So now let’s make the best use for interaction. And let’s see if somebody comes up. Otherwise, we will ask for the chats. Anybody? I don’t see. I don’t know. I look at our people in the group to see if there are questions live. Otherwise, we go for the chat. I think we can ask who was moderating the chat is. Sonia, you can read them out. Yes, please. Sonia, thank you. No, we don’t have to.

Sonia Su:
OK. I didn’t have control of my camera and audio. Thank you. So sorry, thank you very much, Stefano. So there’s, just like you said, there’s been quite nice interactions in the chat and mostly, well, it started with the question, well, one, if the online version of the book was available and for anyone else wondering, it’s still in the chat, the link to the books that were discussed and it will be also sent to meeting registrants, certain links that were discussed today. And another question was, how do we frame diplomats, like diplomats as writers? Is it only and only diplomats? And Amer also replied to this by saying, for now, it’s just foreign service officers or other officials affiliated to foreign ministries and their missions abroad. But maybe it was half agreed that this description in time, it may get expanded. And a few of our participants made very good points on why diplomats are great writers. So I’ll just quickly read out a few. Literary language becomes a tool for conflict resolution. Diplomats choose their words carefully to avert war or find common ground. The intonations used during diplomatic negotiations matter. And then later, too, this is a direct question to Mr. Paolo Trichilo, they asked, can you share an example of a diplomatic negotiation or crisis where the literature played a significant role? How can aspiring diplomats integrate literary understanding into their diplomatic practice? I think this is a great question. And I’ll continue reading if, yeah, I’ll stop. Okay, I’ll stop here.

Stefano Baldi:
I would stop here and just see some, I will ask the same questions, look for answers, I would say, from our two guests. I have also my own ideas, but I’m very curious to hear the guests. So shall we start from the? why diplomats are great writers? Is that a good question? Ambassador Tafik and then Paolo Trichilo.

Mohamed Tawfik:
I agree, that’s a fantastic question. I think part of being a diplomat, not just in terms of traveling and seeing many parts of the world, part of it or integral to the experience is being able to empathize and be able to integrate him or herself into different cultures. So it doesn’t work if a diplomat just goes to another country and acts in a way that isolates him or her from the society where he’s living. He actually needs to integrate very quickly and to empathize very profoundly with the local culture. And in a way, I think that’s one of the requirements of good writing.

Stefano Baldi:
That’s a good point. Paolo, you want to add something?

Paolo Trichilo:
Well, from my side, I would like to make a quotation from the start of my book from a diplomat and writer from India, Abhay Kumar. He wrote in a paper that diplomacy is usually conducted with the short phrases that reveal as much as they hide and that poetry is no different. That’s his interpretation. I think it’s an interesting one. At the same time, I think we have to be careful in not going too far with our enthusiasm and that diplomats can be good writers and writers can be good writers. be good diplomats, but I have chosen, let’s say, the top examples that could be given, even if maybe others have been left out, but also we should not generalize too much in an exercise of self-enthusiasm. But definitely, as our friend and ambassador from Egypt just said, I entirely agree with his previous remarks on the career and the qualifications he mentioned, so I would not add anything to that.

Stefano Baldi:
Amr, if I can add one thing. I don’t know if you want to add, but I have something to add, which is about numbers. Because, you know, I do agree with what I’ve heard, but generalization is very difficult to make, and I like numbers. At certain moments while doing my research, when I was saying, you know, there are more than 1,000 at that time books written by Italian diplomats, and there are, I don’t know, 250 at that time, and everybody was saying, ah, there are so many. So, what is many, what is, you know, few? So, in my opinion, it’s just how many are writing out of a total. That gives you more an idea. So, I counted how many could have written, published books since 1945, and it was at that time something like 3,500. So, less than 10% have published books. So, it’s very little, in my opinion. So, there are very few diplomats who publish books of different kinds. Then let’s not count only those. of narrative or poetry. Most of them, they are memoirs or they are essays. So probably diplomats are good writers, but they don’t publish very much anyway. And then I can tell you numbers. I don’t know if you want to add something.

Amr Aljowaily:
Thank you, Stefano, indeed. And the question raised about the relative numbers is very, very interesting. I did mention that since the 1952 revolution in Egypt, so basically the establishment of the Republic after the kingdom, we have counted 1,000 and something. But now you may need to rethink because I need to see how many diplomats were actually employed by the foreign ministry since 1952 till now, and then see the relative. But what I would argue maybe, Stefano, is that probably the number of diplomats publishing is increasing compared to earlier years, at least that is the case in Egypt. And why is that so, colleague? Because there’s this new trend of diplomacy called public diplomacy, which was not necessarily part and integral of our profession before. It was the very traditional government-to-government diplomacy, closed channel, confidential communication, and so on and so forth. But now the whole profession of diplomacy is actually changing. But if I may, actually, the diplomacy is not only changing because of public diplomacy, although that is, but it is changing because everything is changing with artificial intelligence. We cannot have Yovan Korbalia in this room without actually asking him a question about how does this whole AI impact the business of writing in general and the business of diplomats writing in particular, especially, Jovan, with this new concept that you’ve introduced that I need to read much more about, and maybe you would like to publish or to post the link to it, ties in. So how is that gonna change the profession of writing?

Jovan Kurbalija:
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Amr. Congratulation for an excellent discussion. Yes, Kaizen publication style, the Kaizen word comes from Japanese, and it basically means more or less continuous improvement. And it was a reaction to the inflation of the writing on online in scientific journal. There are some estimates that 20% of scientific journal, including physics and other fields, are now generated by generative AI, mainly ChatGPT and related services. We ask ourselves, what is happening with writing? What is the niche where we humans should occupy? And this is how this Kaizen publication came into the being. It’s also a practical tool. I have almost 1,500 notes from writing on anything, including the diplomats as writers. And I started using the AI as a tool to help me with the desk research and finalized publications. And it’s a real question, to what extent we should rely on AI, and how it’s going to affect diplomacy, not only literature, but also diplomacy. Because as ambassadors indicated, text is and writing are key tools of diplomatic work. Even non-paper is a paper. Everything we discuss ultimately ends up into the written format. The Kaizen publication is that continuous use of AI to have continuous updates on narratives, while having once a year closure for reflective thinking on almost any topic. Therefore, we accept the reality that AI is around, and it is basically generating narratives with various quality. But we think that there is a niche for humans when it comes to the creative thinking, reflections, and the contextualization. And on that point, on AI and writing, I would encourage all diplomatic services. to start developing internal AI. Because diplomatic services are knowledge ecologies par excellence. You can just imagine thousands of cables coming from all capitals reflecting local cultures back to Cairo, Rome, DC. We got with Wikileaks interesting insights of the quality of writing style of the American diplomats, which is unique source for analyzing that quality, which was fascinating, the quality of writing. Therefore, diplomatic services are basically on the eve of the profound change in the way how they use writing as their key tool, but also using AI to unlock the huge reservoir of knowledge, experience, reflection, and expertise, which is stored somewhere in the dusty shelves of diplomatic services worldwide.

Amr Aljowaily:
Thank you, Jovan. Stefano, over to you. Would you like to take a question from the chat or?

Stefano Baldi:
Well, since we’ve been with Jovan since many, many years, tens of years, and every time I discover that there is something else that he proposes to us, and this is Kaizen, but also this idea how will affect our writing, our work, of course, but also our writing. Therefore, also the writing of those who will publish something outside, it’s fascinating. And I’m looking forward to your first Kaizen’s book so that I will understand more how it works, and I will try it as usual. Yes, we have one question for Paolo, which was if there is any example that comes to his mind of negotiations where somehow can be related to literature or literature activities of the people?

Paolo Trichilo:
I do not have a straight answer, but I thank very much for the question. What I would say more… in general terms, is that in any case I’m convinced that reading the literature of the country where you’re serving is one of the important, if not key, elements in understanding the country itself. And sometimes it may be even more useful than history books, because you also read novels and fiction, you go into the mentality of the country. For me, it’s been a very important tool. I would recommend it to everyone. Maybe all those that are following us are already convinced, so I don’t need to preach to the converters. But I think literature is a powerful instrument for understanding a country. And if you allow me one point about writers and publishers, when I said that we should not overemphasize and generalize, is that what is a writer? I don’t consider myself to be a writer. I’m rather a researcher. And the fact of publishing books doesn’t make me a writer in the sense that I interpret it. That is novel, that is fiction. So that is where I draw a line. But of course, this is also open for interpretation. That was the sense of my previous intervention. But I think that also what is a diplomat, we know. What is a writer can be more complicated sometimes to put the finger on.

Stefano Baldi:
You know, if I can, and this answer is also the first question, how we draw the line, how do we define what is the criteria to have a diplomat, defined as diplomat? It’s not always so easy to define diplomat. I mean, it depends from country to country, it depends on the regulations, it depends on how you want to mention this, but especially when you go to writers and you have to put them together. I had to make a choice for my research and to take only career diplomats in Italy, which is relatively easy because all the diplomats in Italy, they are career diplomats, there are no other political appointees. In other countries, it’s more difficult. And then it comes, as you mentioned before, our honorary consul part, can they be considered diplomats, our cultural attachés? That depends very much from country to country, and it can be confusing in a way. Administrative employees of the ministry, sometimes they are accredited as diplomats. So this is not as easy as it seems. But of course, this opens up another issue, which we don’t want to go deeper now. It’s easy to define a career diplomat, but maybe that’s not the only diplomat. Are the UN diplomats diplomats? Of course they are, but they are not national diplomats. So it’s a wide group. Okay, I would go back to Su Sonia if you agree, Amr, if you don’t have anything else to add, if there are other issues to cover.

Sonia Su:
Thank you, Stefano. Not so many, but there were some nice comments as we spoke, like, do writers really make good diplomats? Or is it the other way around? Do diplomats make good writers? But we’ve already addressed that topic. So some of the other comments included, one second, sorry. Yeah, earlier in the meeting, St. John Perseus was mentioned, and we got a comment on LinkedIn saying he’s an excellent reference. And although identified as French, he was born the French Caribbean in Guadeloupe to be precise and his legacy as a poet and diplomat lives on in Guadeloupe. Someone thanked us for this interesting debate and stated that diplomacy and writing are undoubtedly two favorite worlds and tied it up to cultural diplomacy with a geographical focus on the Mediterranean area. I think our participant here wants a very nice vacation in the seat or something and they were thanking everyone for this great discussion. So our main two questions I think has already been addressed and there was another book that was mentioned by our participants about diplomacy and literature and that was The Trojan War Will Not Take Place by Jean Gerdau and for now that is all the comments and questions we have.

Stefano Baldi:
Thank you, thank you Su Sonia. It is interesting all these reactions, very different. If I can react on the good diplomats and good writers and just myself turn this into a question to our two guests which is how do you think it is nowadays and if this has evolved the perception of somebody who is being a diplomat even inside the administration but also in the closer circles. How is it considered today somebody who publishes book and who also is a career diplomat or diplomatic career in some posting like you have been ambassador or now Paolo and not only now how it is today if you have seen a change, we mentioned also this, a change in the last 20-30 years in this perception inside the different administrations in this case of two countries. Ambassador Tawfik.

Mohamed Tawfik:
I think that’s a very important question because first of all we can’t say who is a good writer, who’s a bad writer. It’s something that nobody can determine with accuracy. But does it help a diplomat’s career if it is known that that diplomat is also a writer? Will they be taken serious? This is an issue that was very important for me and I think most people in our foreign service were not aware that I was writing until probably I retired or until I stopped being actively on duty. So basically yes, it can be very damaging if number one, if people are worried that state secrets may one day find their way to some book or other and it also may be damaging if it is the general perception of a person that that person is not very professional, that he or she will not give a hundred percent of their time to the job because a diplomatic job is a 24-hour day, seven days a week job. It’s not a nine-to-five job. So it’s a very good question and it is a serious issue. Thank you.

Stefano Baldi:
Thank you, Ambassador. Paolo?

Paolo Trichilo:
I agree very much still today. This is the common sense in diplomacy that is prevailing. But nonetheless, we we try to do our best and I really would like to thank you Stefano because you have done an incredible job in favor of the Italian diplomacy keeping track of all the published works. It’s something for which the ministry should really thank you, I believe. By the way thanks also to the people that intervened to mention the Guadalupe origin of Alexi Leger, Saint John Purse, absolutely correct, very good point that was made and it seems that Hitler also referred to him with the, no wonder, racist term when he was trying to find a way out from the incoming war.

Stefano Baldi:
Since you mentioned now Alexi Leger, Saint John Purse, sorry I’m gonna give it to you, but before I forget and relate it to something that Ambassador Tawfik said before, he once stated Alexi Leger doesn’t know Saint John Purse and Saint John Purse doesn’t know Alexi Leger, so you can give different interpretation but it was very clear, maybe it was for career, maybe it was because it was…

Paolo Trichilo:
It’s true that he not only didn’t publish any book during his time as a diplomat but also he ordered not to reprint any books previously published while he was having the job of Secretary General, so he kept the two very distinct from one another and this is one of the topics that Maybe in the future, the association and this group may delve into how to interpret the two worlds, how much they collide one against the other, or how much they can live next to each other.

Stefano Baldi:
How much they can feed each other.

Amr Aljowaily:
We are actually five minutes away. Actually, four minutes or 3 and 1⁄2 minutes away. But I’ll share my two cents on this. Is that in the new book that I’m publishing on Egyptian diplomats as writers, one of the premises is that we are all becoming writers now, whether we’d like it or not, because of social media, because of the public dimension of every person, including the diplomat in that regard. It is just that maybe some are extending that public activity a little bit further by writing full-fledged papers or books, rather than just books on Facebook or tweets on X. So basically, this public-slash-private or public-slash-official distinction, which was very clear in the years before, does not exist anymore now. Or it exists in a different way, allowing diplomats more public space to contribute their writings, including if they wish, through diplomacy and literature. We’re three minutes away. I would have actually asked, I just want to share that on the chat, there was actually also very good maybe slogans. Someone shared a slogan with us. Helen, I see that you did propose a slogan about, yes, Inc. unites nations, where words weave bridges. So again, this public diplomacy, this writing that is a way of connecting societies, just like diplomats’ profession is. There was a question also about the philosophical traditions and how these impact the view and the perspective of diplomats. I don’t think we’ll have time to take those questions, but very, very well raised. And of course, also, Jovan raised the tradition of the Inc. Indian diplomats as writers. And this is one new strand that we will include in our page. And he even mentioned the writer of the movie Slumdog Milionaire, which actually was also written by Indian diplomat. So two minutes. May I give to Stefano a one-minute conclusion, and then I’ll have one minute. And then we promise that we’ll take that further in the series that we plan to do.

Stefano Baldi:
My conclusion is very simple. This is only the beginning. It was exciting. It was extremely interesting, especially to meet very interesting colleagues. And just to make us think more on the possibilities and how things can develop in the future if we share our knowledge, if we share our passions. And this is what it’s all about.

Amr Aljowaily:
Indeed, thank you, Stefano. Once again, I’ll re-emphasize that this is the first of a series. And those three groups of diplomats from three different great countries, Switzerland, Italy, and Egypt, is only the beginning. We have a hundred and ninety-two to add and more. As you see here, maybe that title of the Swiss diplomat as writer, Le Picorne et la Plume, really also captures a lot of what we are saying today. Basically, that the diplomat can hold the same pen, can hold the same picorne, but can use that pen in many different ways in professional and in creative writing. So please share with us any knowledge, thoughts, ideas, comments, feedback that you may have. Allow me, please, to express my sincere thanks to our distinguished speakers, Ambassador Mohamed Tawfik, Ambassador Paolo Trichilo. And let me, please, also express sincere thanks for Mina, Arvin, and Nikola, a team that has really worked on developing that page and that portal, I would say. forward and looking forward to seeing you. Is it the 2nd of October? Stefano, which date did we agree on?

Stefano Baldi:
2nd of October, 5 p.m CET or CEST, whatever you prefer. It’s our next appointment, so stay tuned. We will keep you posted and I’m sure it will be as exciting as today. So let me also thank our two guests. It was really great to be with you. I will have some more to read and we’ll be looking forward to your old novels and to the new ones that you will be writing. Thank you very much and thank you, Paolo.

Amr Aljowaily:
Stay tuned and write more and interact more. Thank you.