Natalia was born in Saint Petersburg on the day it regained that name in 1991; her father a musical instrument repairer and her mother a baker.

After reading English and Italian at university, she was recruited into the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and dispatched to the land of lasagne, Lotharios, sun-tan lotion and the original mafiosi. Embassy life had its moments and could be attractively Machiavellian, but she says, 'I was always treading on egg-shells.' And toes we might wonder, as she next pops up working in a coffee-house in Lucca, which she says did not make 'the best coffee this side of Milan', but the chatter was less constrained and the false flags of the customers less scary than those of Third Secretary Oleg.

She wrote a short story in English about an eavesdropping beetle called Tatius, which lived in the carpet in the headmaster's study at her old school, then started on The East German Police Girl, growing gradually more and more absorbed by it and the foibles and courage of its various characters.

In talking to her - or anyone - I want to get beyond the Barbie Doll stuff. Her pastimes are archery, reading, walking in the country, ice-skating, but what is intriguing about someone is motive, ambition. I guess that Natalia would like to settle in Europe and be successful, but true to her background, she keeps her cards close to her chest.

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