Ryszard Kapuściński

Ryszard Kapuściński
Ryszard Kapuscinski by Kubik 17.05.1997.jpg
Kapuściński pictured in May 1997
Born March 4, 1932(1932-03-04)
Pińsk, Poland
(now in Belarus).
Died January 23, 2007 (aged 74)
Warsaw, Poland
Occupation historian & journalist
Ethnicity Polish
Notable credit(s)
[Ryszard Kapuściński Official website]

Ryszard Kapuściński (pronounced: ['rɨʂard kapuɕ'ʨiɲski], listen; March 4, 1932 - January 23, 2007) was a popular Polish journalist, author, publicist and poet, at both home and abroad. Born in Pińsk, a city formerly located in the Kresy Wschodnie (Eastern Borderlands) of the Second Polish Republic, and now belonging to Belarus, Kapuściński is generally thought of as the leading Polish journalist of his time.

Contents

Third World reportage and other work

During the years from 1954 to 1981 Kapuściński was a member of Polish United Workers' Party. In 1964, after honing his skills on domestic stories, he "was appointed by the Polish Press Agency (PAP) as its only foreign correspondent, and for the next ten years he was 'responsible' for fifty countries."[1] Since 1965 he traveled around the developing world and reported on wars, coups and revolutions in Asia, Europe and the Americas; including the Football War a "bloody, scarcely believable conflict that Honduras and El Salvador waged in 1969 over a pair of soccer games."[1] When he finally returned to Poland, he had lived through twenty-seven revolutions and coups, been jailed 40 times and survived four death sentences.[2] In the English speaking world, Kapuściński is best known for his reporting from Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, when he witnessed first-hand the end of the European colonial empires on that continent.

Author

From the early 1960s onwards, Kapuściński published books of increasing literary craftsmanship characterized by sophisticated narrative technique, psychological portraits of characters, a wealth of stylization and metaphor and unusual imagery that serves as means of interpreting the perceived world. Kapuściński's best-known book, The Emperor, concerns itself with the decline of Haile Selassie's anachronistic regime in Ethiopia. Shah of Shahs, on the fall of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, and Imperium, about the last days of the Soviet Union, have enjoyed similar success.[3]

Kapuściński was fascinated not only by exotic worlds and people, but also by books: he approached foreign countries first through literature, spending months reading before each trip. He was skilled in listening to the diverse people he met, but he was also capable of "reading" the hidden sense of the scenes he encountered: the way the Europeans moved out of Angola, a discussion regarding alimony in the Tanganyikan parliament, the reconstruction of frescoes in the new Russia—he turned each of these vignettes into a metaphor of historical transformation. This tendency to process private adventures into a greater social synthesis made Kapuściński an eminent thinker, and the volumes of the ongoing Lapidarium series are a fascinating record of the shaping of a reporter's observations into philosophical reflections on the world and people.

In Poland, Kapuściński was also known as a poet. In November, 2007, Biblioasis published Kapuściński's selected poems in English, I Wrote Stone, bringing this aspect of Kapuściński's work to an English audience for the first time.

Praise, honours and critiques

Salman Rushdie wrote about him: "One Kapuściński is worth more than a thousand whimpering and fantasizing scribblers. His exceptional combination of journalism and art allows us to feel so close to what Kapuściński calls the inexpressible true image of war".[4]

Although he was frequently mentioned as a favorite to win the Nobel Prize in literature, it was never awarded to him. In a 2006 interview with Reuters, Kapuściński said that he wrote for "people everywhere still young enough to be curious about the world." This quote from Kapuściński may be the most important. Introducing him into college level courses provides another view to those students about the world of the Cold War and the role of dictators, "revolutions" and the US and Soviet's attempts to influence the world. He died on January 23, 2007, following a grave illness.[5] Since his death he has been offered many epitaphs in the press, such as, "The master of modern journalism",[6] "Translator of the World" and "The Greatest Reporter in the World",[7] "Herodotus of our times",[8] "Third World chronicler".[9][10] His work has been criticised, however, for factual inaccuracies and for the image he creates of Africa.[11]

Selected Bibliography

Works which have been translated into English

Works currently unavailable in English

Journal contributions by issue

Notes and references

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Soccer Wars (excerpt from jacket), at Granta
  2. ↑ Fellow Travelers By Donald Morrison
  3. ↑ Institute of Books
  4. ↑ [1] - Gazeta Wyborcza Internet edition, in Polish
  5. ↑ Polish chronicler of Third World Kapuscinski dies – International Herald Tribune, (January 23, 2007)
  6. ↑ (English) "The Best Journalist in the World?", Europe Today, BBC (2007-01-24). Retrieved on 2007-01-25. 
  7. ↑ (German) Claus Christian Malzahn (2007-01-24). "Der beste Reporter der Welt", Der Spiegel. Retrieved on 2007-01-25. 
  8. ↑ (German) F.A.Z. (corporate author) (2007-01-24). "Ein Herodot für unsere Zeit", Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Retrieved on 2007-01-25. 
  9. ↑ (English) "Third World chronicler Kapuscinski dies", CNN.com, CNN (2007-01-23). Retrieved on 2007-01-25. 
  10. ↑ (German) kai/dpa (2007-01-23). "Polnischer Autor Kapuscinski gestorben", Der Spiegel. Retrieved on 2007-01-25. 
  11. ↑ [http: http://www.richardwebster.net/johnryle.html At Play in the Bush of Ghosts] - Times Literary Supplement, (27 July 2001)
  12. ↑ http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781400043385
  13. ↑ http://www.universitas.com.pl/szukaj?t=spotkanie+z+innym&szukaj=1&a=1

See also

External links