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50s to 90s Kuwait

State of Excitement. Impressions of Kuwait by Ian Fleming

This is a long shot but does anyone have a copy of the book “State of Excitement” by James Bond creator Ian Fleming?

The Kuwait Oil Company commissioned Fleming to write this short book about Kuwait. However, the Kuwaiti Goverment disapproved of the final manuscript, which they found condescending, and the book was never published, despite repeated overtures to the Kuwaiti Goverment over the years.

The frontispiece to Fleming`s copy of the book reads: This is the only bound copy of a short book I wrote on Kuwait in December 1960. It was a condition of my obtaining facilities to visit Kuwait and write the book that the text should have the approval of the Kuwait Oil Company, whose guest I was.

The Oil Company expressed approval of the book but felt it their duty to submit the typescript to members of the Kuwait Government for their approval. The Sheiks concerned found unpalatable certain mild comments and criticism and particularly the passages referring to the adventurous past of the country which now wishes to be “civilised” in every respect and forget its romantic origins.

Accordingly, the book was stillborn. [source]

Here is a review of the book as well where they highlight some reasons the book might have been banned including this one:

A second rather humorous story the author relates revolve around an invitation he received to dine at one of the Sheikh’s numerous palaces. It seems that this palace located somewhere along the Persian Gulf coast had a very long dock which extended out far from land and at its end was a beautiful building where the Sheihk invited Fleming and other guests. In grand fashion the guests were carried from the shore in a stretch limousine out along the dock to the mini-palace. He noticed that after the guests had been dropped off, the driver had to back up the entire length of the dock, turn around and then back up the entire length of the dock once again. Fleming surmised that the driver was instructed to do this so that when the dinner was finished, the Sheikh and his guests could get back into the car on the ‘correct’ side and drive “forward” back to the shore. Fleming, almost snidely relates that even with all that money at his disposal the Sheikh couldn’t design and build a dock with a wide enough turn around. In other words, in this little vignette Fleming is mocking his host’s design and thereby his intelligence.

If you have a copy can you please accidentally leak it to me from an anonymous email address? Thank you!

13 replies on “State of Excitement. Impressions of Kuwait by Ian Fleming”

There appears to be one copy in Lilly Library on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington. Though I don’t remember where exactly I came upon the information, I read that there was another manuscript copy which came up at an auction late ’80s and it was sold for nearly a million pounds. It certainly would fetch many times this now if it ever came up at an auction.

https://alt.fan.james-bond.narkive.com/Fvd9s7gt/review-ian-fleming-s-unpublished-manuscript-state-of-excitement

If someone ever had to write a book on Kuwait, I’d want it to be you, Mark.

You can just send over the copy for proofreading, I’d love for the world to see Kuwait from your perspective far more than some Ian Fleming’s!

Ian Fleming came to visit my late husband and I when we lived in Kuwait and worked for the Kuwait Oil Company

During 1950s-1960s, my mother Pat Bryant (before she married my father Ken Trott) was working as a Secretary for the Kuwait Oil Company. Ian Fleming had been commissioned to write a book about the history of the Company. He had to go around Kuwait to talk to interview various people, and would return to Ahmadi periodically with his next draft for the book. My mother was seconded to be his typist, and she had to type up the notes and drafts. She said he was very charming but businesslike. In the end the Ruling Family did not like his book and it never got published. My mother told me this story a number of times. She died in May 2020 aged 94.

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