The Ugly American

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The Ugly American

Written by:	Eugene Burdick
Central Theme:
Synopsis:
Genre(s):	Political novel
First published:	1958

"For some reason, the people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They're loud and ostentatious. Perhaps they're frightened and defensive, or maybe they're not properly trained and make mistakes out of ignorance."

The Ugly American is a political novel written by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer in 1958. The book narrates the life of various fictitious political figures and their lives within the fictional Asian country of Sarkhan.

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Tropes used in The Ugly American include:

• Bilingual Backfire: American diplomats hire natives of the fictional war-torn Southeast Asian country to work as servants in their embassy. A visiting Chinese diplomat discovers and explains that at least some of the servants are spies pretending not to understand English.
• Eagle Land: Perhaps the entire point of the book is to explore both flavors and how they each affect American perceptions in Southeast Asia. Unsurprisingly, most of the protagonists are flavor 1's, while the bumbling, ineffective diplomats are flavor 2's.
• Fictional Country: Sarkhan.
• Wutai: Sarkhan.