Language

Style of Language

The novella The Embassy of Cambodia has a neutral style of language. The language is precise and sentences are kept short and to the point. 

The narrative occasionally uses contractions and short sentences to give the impression of a conversational tone in the sections where the narrator is commenting on the embassy or Fatou: “Who would expect the Embassy of Cambodia? Nobody. Nobody could have expected it, or be expecting it. It’s a surprise, to us all. The Embassy of Cambodia!”

The novella includes many repeated words when describing the badminton game. For example, the repetition of the onomatopoeia “pock, smash” throughout the text shows the constant nature of the badminton game, which appears never-ending. Other examples include the words “lobbed and smashed, lobbed and smashed” or “first gentle, then fast, first soft and high, then hard and low”. These repetitions also highlight the fact that the players are not even, and one of them plays aggressively and dominates the match, while the other player is forced to “lob”, whic...