The Foreign Service Journal - November 2017

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2017 33 cultural affairs officer. Since then, she has served in Argentina, Japan, Burkina Faso, Mexico, Cameroon, Sudan, the Domini- can Republic and Washington, D.C. Muhammad Hassan Miraj is a creative writing teacher, pub- lished author and communication practitioner, but above all a storyteller. His 15-year career in the Pakistan Army took him across the country, enabling him to connect with ethnic and linguistic subcultures, and included nearly a year in the United States. The Lusophone World: The Evolution of Portuguese National Narratives Sarah Ashby, Sussex Academic Press, 2017, $69.95/hardcover, 168 pages. To deepen and strengthen its ties with Lusophone countries across the globe, in 1996 the Portuguese government founded a supranational organization called the Community of Portu- guese-Speaking Countries. In contrast to Portugal’s perception of marginality in relation to Europe, in the realm of the CPLP the former world power could once again see itself as existing at the center—geographically, as well as from a historic-cul- tural perspective—of an extensive international milieu. The Lusophone World: The Evolution of Portuguese National Narratives —the first volume in a series exploring “The Por- tuguese-Speaking World”—analyzes the dialectic between Portugal’s sense of identity and its membership in both the European Union and the CPLP. Author Sarah Ashby suggests that the fact that Lisbon is forging closer ties with its former colonies does not necessarily reflect estrangement from Brus- sels. More likely, it is simply seeking new tools to survive and prosper as a member of a rapidly changing European Union. Sarah Ashby, a Foreign Service officer posted in São Paulo, notes in her preface that the inspiration for this book came from her 2013 internship in Embassy Lisbon. She received a Ph.D. from Brown University’s Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies in 2015.