Mostrando resultados por autor "Ronald Mackay" en Todas las categorías

Sent deep behind the Iron Curtain to Bucharest by the British Government in 1967, Ronald Mackay serves as the “sharp end” of a trade initiative. How will he fare in communist-run Romania where suspicion abounds and Ceausescu’s Secret Police are everywhere? With irony-tinged humour, Ronald tells of seductive informants; an ex-political-prisoner-turned-spy; fearful minorities; a hunting trip with the Communist elite; travels in Dracula’s Transylvania; of running into a company of armed tanks; and of threatening Charles de Gaulle’s attempt to be the first Western premier to court ...

Fortunate Isle is a story to delight readers young and old. It tells of 1960, a special time in the author's life when at 18, he explores what the world has to offer, unaccompanied and far from home. His stories make Buenavista del Norte, a 15th century village in Tenerife, sparkle like the sunlit sea. There are moments of amusement and confusion, of achievements and setbacks as this young man, initially speaking no Spanish, becomes part of a close-knit community unused to strangers. He wins the confidence of a matriarch who runs the small inn that he found the very day he arrived. His ...

Ronald Mackay’s sympathetic observation of people, places and events are evident in each of these 31 stories. He writes with humor and gravity, tenderness and compassion, optimism and joy. Each story treats us to a place where he has lived and worked, from Scotland to Spain, Mexico to Argentina, Romania to India. Some stories deal with fleeting occurrences, others with abiding uncertainties; some are biographical, others offer insights into the intimacies of people different from us, yet deeply similar. They show what it takes to pluck triumph from defeat, and joy from anguish; how order,...