"Superfluous People in the Service of Brute Power," by Ceridwen Dovey

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The three main characters in Blood Kin are the chef, the portraitist, and the barber of a corrupt President. Each man repeatedly performs an intimate yet non-political task for the President - nourishing him, rendering his image in oils to be hung in Parliament, grooming him - and I was interested in exploring whether this made them complicit in the President's wrongdoing. Are they inadvertently propping up his power and authority by performing these seemingly banal services? What is the moral fallout of their proximity to power and its abuses?

As humans, we are fascinated by "superfluous people in the service of brute power," as Ryszard Kapuscinski put it (see The Emperor, which is based on interviews he did with Haile Selassie's servants in Ethiopia in the years after Selassie was overthrown).

Think of the interest in Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge, or his personal bodyguard, Rochus Misch; the trial of Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan; or the recent story about Zimbabwean dictator Mugabe's lavish birthday party for his cronies, which mentioned that "imported Ceres juice, soft drink cans, such as Fanta, Coke, Sprite and snacks flowed freely from the heavily guarded state house chef's cabin".

Portraits of rulers have long been known to "do more than merely present an official likeness: they can also be used as propaganda to promote an image that emphasizes such virtues as wisdom, majesty, and military prowess" (see Understanding Paintings for an interesting section on the genre of "ruler portraits").

Mussolini was given a daily massage by a physiotherapist named Horn, and his cook told his doctor that "it was impossible to convince the Duce to eat mashed potatoes or vegetables, as he complained these caused pains in his head". Stalin had a personal food taster, nicknamed "the Rabbit," as well as a chef who was the grandfather to current Russian Prime Minister Putin.

And for a description of then-dictator of Nicaragua, "Tacho" Somoza, being shaved by his barber as he discusses politics, see this article in TIME from 1948.

Quite by chance, at a bustling bar in the otherwise-dead financial district in New York on Saturday night, I met an Ethiopian of Italian and Greek descent who told me proudly that his grandfather had been Haile Selassie's tailor.

When Selassie was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930, he made it onto the cover of TIME magazine, looking dapper. According to the accompanying article in TIME, President Hoover sent a representative to the coronation who brought with him the following "unofficial, privately-paid-for U.S. Coronation gifts":

One electric refrigerator.

One red typewriter emblazoned with the Ethiopian Royal Arms.

One radio set with phonograph attachment.

One hundred records of "distinctly American music."

Five hundred rose bushes, including several dozen President Hoovers.

A new kind of amaryllis developed by the U. S. Department of Agriculture.

A bound set of National Geographic Society publications.

A bound report of the Chicago Field Museum's expedition to Abyssinia.

Three moving picture films: Ben Hur, The King of Kings, With Byrd at the South Pole.

 Ceridwen Dovey, Blood Kin, Penguin, Penguin Books