I want to tell you a story…

This, short of being on the winner’s table as your author is handed the Man Booker International Prize and the cash tills start to ring out in congratulation, is about as good as it gets for a literary agent – someone who sells books to publishers on their authors’ behalf – and something I do when not writing myself. I’ve watched by ‘my’ author, General Sir Richard Shirreff, spend two weeks on the top 10 fiction list. Translation rights have been sold to nine countries, including Ukraine. At the last minute, Shirreff cannot make the PR trip and, instead, it is me sitting at the Kiev Book Festival, author, talking to a rapt audience before heading off to a splendid dinner with my two female minders, both charming and both called Elena. The following day I’m interviewed live by Radio Ukraine International, and this is followed by a stirring speech to the Military Academy. Nobody so far has commented that, instead of a four-star general and former number twoand all-expenses-paid trips to Kiev are the exception rather than the rule for the vast majority of published authors, let alone their agents.