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The Shadow of the Sun
In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Poland's state newspaper. From the early days of independence in Ghana to the ongoing ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Kapuscinski has crisscrossed vast distances pursuing the swift, and often violent, events that followed liberation. Kapuscinski hitchhikes with caravans, wanders the Sahara with nomads, and lives in the poverty-stricken slums of Nigeria. He wrestles a king cobra to the death and suffers through a bout of malaria. What emerges is an extraordinary depiction of Africa--not as a group of nations or geographic locations--but as a vibrant and frequently joyous montage of peoples, cultures, and encounters. Kapuscinski's trenchant observations, wry analysis and overwhelming humanity paint a remarkable portrait of the continent and its people. His unorthodox approach and profound respect for the people he meets challenge conventional understandings of the modern problems faced by Africa at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
325 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
About the author
Ryszard Kapuściński
101 books1,842 followersRyszard Kapuściński debuted as a poet in Dziś i jutro at the age of 17 and has been a journalist, writer, and publicist. In 1964 he was appointed to the Polish Press Agency and began traveling around the developing world and reporting on wars, coups and revolutions in Asia, the Americas, and Europe; he lived through twenty-seven revolutions and coups, was jailed forty times, and survived four death sentences. During some of this time he also worked for the Polish Secret Service, although little is known of his role.
See also Ryszard Kapuściński Prize
See also Ryszard Kapuściński Prize
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July 11, 2021
NEL CONTINENTE NERO, ALLE FALDE DEL KILIMANGIARO
”Another Day of Life - Ancora un giorno” è un documentario d’animazione del 2018 di Raul De La Fuente e Damian Nenow che racconta il viaggio di Kapuściński in Angola durante la guerra civile (1975).
Evitavo gli itinerari ufficiali, i palazzi, i personaggi importanti e la grande politica. Preferivo viaggiare su camion di fortuna, percorrere il deserto con i nomadi, farmi ospitare dai contadini della savana tropicale. La vita di questa gente è una fatica, un tormento che tuttavia sopporta con incredibile serenità e resistenza. Questo non è un libro sull’Africa, ma su alcune persone che vi abitano, sui miei incontri con loro, sul tempo trascorso assieme.
Come raccontare il continente africano potrebbe essere il sottotitolo di questa raccolta di articoli giornalistici, memoir, aneddoti, note e appunti di viaggio.
Kapuściński cominciò a viaggiare in Africa alla fine degli anni Cinquanta e ha continuato a farlo con il suo inconfondibile stile per qualche decennio in avanti, scrivendo pezzi su vari argomenti e diverse nazioni del continente nero, evitando gli stereotipi, le tappe obbligate e i luoghi comuni, fermandosi ad abitare nei sobborghi più poveri, ammalandosi di malaria cerebrale e tubercolosi, curate negli ambulatori locali, rischiando la morte per mano di miliziani, raccontando la vita della gente: semplicemente mischiandosi, incontrando e condividendo con la gente comune, senza però snobbare quella più celebre.
Ovvio che tocca partire dalla storia della colonizzazione europea, arrivare alla fine della stessa, e poi le rivolte che sembrano accendersi come fiammiferi, che l’Occidente è sempre pronto a “impacchettare” ad arte. Kapuściński era bianco ed europeo nell’epoca in cui la gente d’Africa si stava liberando dei bianchi europei, li scacciava, si riappropriava del potere e del paese.
La prima tappa fu Accra, Ghana, nel 1957. Seguì il colpo di stato in Nigeria del 1966, la presa del potere di Idi Amin in Uganda, hutu e tutsi in Rwanda fino al genocidio del 1994, i bambini soldato, il Kenia, la Somalia, l’Etiopia (la carestia!), l’Eritrea, il Sudan, la Tanzania, Zanzibar, Nigeria, Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, Liberia…
Rimane bloccato nel deserto per un guasto meccanico e prova le allucinazioni e il delirio da disidratazione, si muove con mezzi pubblici sovraffollati, oppure fa l’autostop, arriva in posti sperduti, rischia la vita
Pur parlando del problema climatico (il caldo, la siccità), della povertà endemica, del mondo magico, dei conflitti tribali, e quindi di quelli che si potrebbero definire stereotipi, quelli dietro cui noi occidentali ci siamo sempre nascosti, Kapuściński sa andare oltre, sa comprendere la varietà di quell’immenso continente. Reporter come ce ne sono stati pochi.
”Another Day of Life - Ancora un giorno” è un documentario d’animazione del 2018 di Raul De La Fuente e Damian Nenow che racconta il viaggio di Kapuściński in Angola durante la guerra civile (1975).
Evitavo gli itinerari ufficiali, i palazzi, i personaggi importanti e la grande politica. Preferivo viaggiare su camion di fortuna, percorrere il deserto con i nomadi, farmi ospitare dai contadini della savana tropicale. La vita di questa gente è una fatica, un tormento che tuttavia sopporta con incredibile serenità e resistenza. Questo non è un libro sull’Africa, ma su alcune persone che vi abitano, sui miei incontri con loro, sul tempo trascorso assieme.
Come raccontare il continente africano potrebbe essere il sottotitolo di questa raccolta di articoli giornalistici, memoir, aneddoti, note e appunti di viaggio.
Kapuściński cominciò a viaggiare in Africa alla fine degli anni Cinquanta e ha continuato a farlo con il suo inconfondibile stile per qualche decennio in avanti, scrivendo pezzi su vari argomenti e diverse nazioni del continente nero, evitando gli stereotipi, le tappe obbligate e i luoghi comuni, fermandosi ad abitare nei sobborghi più poveri, ammalandosi di malaria cerebrale e tubercolosi, curate negli ambulatori locali, rischiando la morte per mano di miliziani, raccontando la vita della gente: semplicemente mischiandosi, incontrando e condividendo con la gente comune, senza però snobbare quella più celebre.
Ovvio che tocca partire dalla storia della colonizzazione europea, arrivare alla fine della stessa, e poi le rivolte che sembrano accendersi come fiammiferi, che l’Occidente è sempre pronto a “impacchettare” ad arte. Kapuściński era bianco ed europeo nell’epoca in cui la gente d’Africa si stava liberando dei bianchi europei, li scacciava, si riappropriava del potere e del paese.
La prima tappa fu Accra, Ghana, nel 1957. Seguì il colpo di stato in Nigeria del 1966, la presa del potere di Idi Amin in Uganda, hutu e tutsi in Rwanda fino al genocidio del 1994, i bambini soldato, il Kenia, la Somalia, l’Etiopia (la carestia!), l’Eritrea, il Sudan, la Tanzania, Zanzibar, Nigeria, Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, Liberia…
Rimane bloccato nel deserto per un guasto meccanico e prova le allucinazioni e il delirio da disidratazione, si muove con mezzi pubblici sovraffollati, oppure fa l’autostop, arriva in posti sperduti, rischia la vita
Pur parlando del problema climatico (il caldo, la siccità), della povertà endemica, del mondo magico, dei conflitti tribali, e quindi di quelli che si potrebbero definire stereotipi, quelli dietro cui noi occidentali ci siamo sempre nascosti, Kapuściński sa andare oltre, sa comprendere la varietà di quell’immenso continente. Reporter come ce ne sono stati pochi.
July 9, 2014
Ryszard Kapuscinski sits under the branchy shade of a solitary acacia and stares at the incommensurable moonlike landscape unfolding in front of him. Plains covered with parched, thorny shrubs and vast extensions of sandy ground seem ablaze in a shimmering haze that refracts on the journalist’s eyes forcing him to squint. “Water and shade, such fluid, inconstant things, and the two most valuable treasures in Africa”, this half-historian, half-journalist recalls while revisiting the thirty years he spent roaming the most recondite spots of this battered continent castigated both by man and the most hostile aspect of nature. A place where its people are one with its arid terrain, blinding light and spicy smells. A place where the night belongs to myth and spirits, where time stretches and melts without shape or tempo. A place where history does not exist in archives or records because it can only be measured by memory, by what can be recounted here and now. So I sit down next to Ryszard and I listen to his chronicle.
With unsentimental approach and spartan phraseology unravelled in a collage of disorderly snapshots spread out in time and assorted geography, Kapuscinski evokes the Africa that runs through his veins, beats in his heart and brims over his memory, avoiding clichés and showing the hidden face of this mistreated continent. He neither judges nor idealizes the African culture. Instead he narrows his incisive perspective down to the daily life of cast leaders, peasants or the bayaye --beggars--, eluding the official routes of embassies, palaces or press conferences to disclose the reality of contemporary Africa. Formally presented in autobiographical narrative but with the intimate tone of a personal diary, the main events of the last century are overtly disclosed: colonialism, racism, tribal wars, mass famine, sadistic genocide, power struggles and corruption are tackled and dissected with factual crudity.
Kapuscinski’s account is that of a witness, that of a wanderer who knows Africa to be a too disparate menagerie of tribes, castes and ancient traditions to be framed as a whole.
“The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, we can say “Africa”. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist.”
One needs to inhale the pungent odor of rotten fish drying out in the scorching sun, to wake up in a local hospital shuddering with the feverish coldness of malaria, to observe emaciated children fainting next to markets full of provisions or used as kamikaze soldiers in the militia under the effect of drugs, to assume that a useless object like a casserole or a rusty bicycle can make a difference between poverty and middle class, to respect tribes whose only source of income comes from a camel or a cow and their culture of exchange, to understand that misery condemns most to death and transforms a few into monsters, bloody dictators, crazied executioners like Idi Amín, whose demented quest to exterminate the Tutsis cast in Rwanda was endorsed by several European presidents. One needs to live all that in order to entirely grasp the glory and the consequence of a place like Africa.
Kapuscinski awakens from his reverie. He stares back at me, his eyes full of golden sun and unwavering sadness. Sitting under the shelter of this acacia tree, I have listened to this man’s soul and I have felt The Spirit of Africa. I have envisioned life as an endless battle, as a frail equilibrium between survival and annihilation but also as a mosaic of vivid colors and ceaceless metamorphosis. And I have understood that nothing will ever conquer the immense elephant of the world, nothing will ever conquer Africa and its power within. For its power remains in its untamable nature, and its nature is its people.
With unsentimental approach and spartan phraseology unravelled in a collage of disorderly snapshots spread out in time and assorted geography, Kapuscinski evokes the Africa that runs through his veins, beats in his heart and brims over his memory, avoiding clichés and showing the hidden face of this mistreated continent. He neither judges nor idealizes the African culture. Instead he narrows his incisive perspective down to the daily life of cast leaders, peasants or the bayaye --beggars--, eluding the official routes of embassies, palaces or press conferences to disclose the reality of contemporary Africa. Formally presented in autobiographical narrative but with the intimate tone of a personal diary, the main events of the last century are overtly disclosed: colonialism, racism, tribal wars, mass famine, sadistic genocide, power struggles and corruption are tackled and dissected with factual crudity.
Kapuscinski’s account is that of a witness, that of a wanderer who knows Africa to be a too disparate menagerie of tribes, castes and ancient traditions to be framed as a whole.
“The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, we can say “Africa”. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist.”
One needs to inhale the pungent odor of rotten fish drying out in the scorching sun, to wake up in a local hospital shuddering with the feverish coldness of malaria, to observe emaciated children fainting next to markets full of provisions or used as kamikaze soldiers in the militia under the effect of drugs, to assume that a useless object like a casserole or a rusty bicycle can make a difference between poverty and middle class, to respect tribes whose only source of income comes from a camel or a cow and their culture of exchange, to understand that misery condemns most to death and transforms a few into monsters, bloody dictators, crazied executioners like Idi Amín, whose demented quest to exterminate the Tutsis cast in Rwanda was endorsed by several European presidents. One needs to live all that in order to entirely grasp the glory and the consequence of a place like Africa.
Kapuscinski awakens from his reverie. He stares back at me, his eyes full of golden sun and unwavering sadness. Sitting under the shelter of this acacia tree, I have listened to this man’s soul and I have felt The Spirit of Africa. I have envisioned life as an endless battle, as a frail equilibrium between survival and annihilation but also as a mosaic of vivid colors and ceaceless metamorphosis. And I have understood that nothing will ever conquer the immense elephant of the world, nothing will ever conquer Africa and its power within. For its power remains in its untamable nature, and its nature is its people.
November 19, 2013
“The population of Africa was a gigantic, matted, crisscrossing web, spanning the entire continent and in constant motion, endlessly undulating, bunching up in one place and spreading out in another, a rich fabric, a colourful arras.” - Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Shadow of the Sun
A man I’d unfortunately never heard of wrote one of the most engaging historical reflections I've’ve ever read. Ryszard Kapuscinski reported on African events for a Polish newspaper for over 40 years. He was definitely in Africa at the right times; during the fights for independence, military coups and so on. Kapuscinski placed events like the Rwandan genocide (and the lesser-known Burundian genocide that happened alongside it) in their cultural and historical contexts.
There were many surprises along the way, the biggest shocker for me being the fact that the descendants of former slaves , the Americo-Liberians, just about re-enacted what they had been through in America when they settled in Liberia among the indigenous Africans. It’s definitely a reminder of how history is often repeated.
Why I think this stands out as a historical account is not only because of the proximity of the writer to the actual events, but also his observations. I am always surprised when a non-African writer tries to understand the culture, in a non-judgemental or critical way, as pessimistic as that may sound. Kapuscinski was definitely an observer and tried to understand things that were “foreign” to him, things such as the African concept of time , which I found very interesting and enlightening.
“The European and the African have an entirely different concept of time. In the European worldview, time exists outside man, exists objectively, and has measurable and linear characteristics. Africans apprehend time differently. For them, it is a much looser concept, more open, elastic, subjective. It is man who influences time, its shape, course and rhythm.”
— Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Shadow of the Sun
The author showed the complexity of the African society, the fact that it’s not homogeneous in the least.
A very easy, entertaining read with passages of the most beautiful and poetic language. A great introduction to African history which encouraged me to learn more about the events in depth.
A man I’d unfortunately never heard of wrote one of the most engaging historical reflections I've’ve ever read. Ryszard Kapuscinski reported on African events for a Polish newspaper for over 40 years. He was definitely in Africa at the right times; during the fights for independence, military coups and so on. Kapuscinski placed events like the Rwandan genocide (and the lesser-known Burundian genocide that happened alongside it) in their cultural and historical contexts.
There were many surprises along the way, the biggest shocker for me being the fact that the descendants of former slaves , the Americo-Liberians, just about re-enacted what they had been through in America when they settled in Liberia among the indigenous Africans. It’s definitely a reminder of how history is often repeated.
Why I think this stands out as a historical account is not only because of the proximity of the writer to the actual events, but also his observations. I am always surprised when a non-African writer tries to understand the culture, in a non-judgemental or critical way, as pessimistic as that may sound. Kapuscinski was definitely an observer and tried to understand things that were “foreign” to him, things such as the African concept of time , which I found very interesting and enlightening.
“The European and the African have an entirely different concept of time. In the European worldview, time exists outside man, exists objectively, and has measurable and linear characteristics. Africans apprehend time differently. For them, it is a much looser concept, more open, elastic, subjective. It is man who influences time, its shape, course and rhythm.”
— Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Shadow of the Sun
The author showed the complexity of the African society, the fact that it’s not homogeneous in the least.
A very easy, entertaining read with passages of the most beautiful and poetic language. A great introduction to African history which encouraged me to learn more about the events in depth.
December 13, 2024
I have only read a few book by Kapuscinski, one of which was a Penguin Great Journeys book The Cobra's Heart, which is an excerpt from this book. I gave that five stars, and reading that book convinced me to buy more of this authors work, including this book, which I have finally made time for from my shelf.
This is probably Kapuscinski's best known book, and is his highest rated book on GR. Not without reason. This is 5 stars for me, and this was confirmed by about a third of the way through.
This book just reads well - it deals in detail, with some complex issues, but it doesn't get bogged down, and remains very easy to read, and very ... approachable, I guess. Perhaps this is a nod to the skills of the translator, as well as the author.
It is not a linear narrative book. It jumps around in time and in location. A chapter does not necessarily follow the one before, but sometimes they do. Kapuscinski is known for his reportage, perhaps more so than his books, and this book certainly displays an aspect of reportage, in that it can almost be read as a series of essays - some inter-related, but most not.
Geographically it covers many more countries than I had expected - my shelf list mentions each country that gets more than a passing mention. Kapuscinski obviously has an understanding of the peoples and the cultures, and he writes often with passion and emotion, but also at times with detachment - perhaps this comes from his reportage background too.
But not everyone is a fan. There are professional reviews of Kapuscinski's work where he is heavily criticised, including this book. The most critical is probably John Ryles review linked here. There are a number of points Ryle makes, some of which are unfair (eg calling Kapuscinski out on generalisation - I found the author goes out of his way to explain when he generalises at the start of the book, and from then on is careful to talk about specific tribes or countries), some are bizarre (his calling out of Kapuscinski over a statement about a bookshop - I reread that section to try to understand Kapuscinski's timeline - to me it could be anywhere from 1957 to just before publication in 1998, and therefore Ryle's argument that it isn't true at the time of his review is pointless), and some seem to be correct in that there are errors in Kapuscinski's text (there are a couple of mentions about women not being able to touch cattle). These last criticisms are minor, but nevertheless I have no defence for the author on these.
Irrespective of some minor failings on fact checking, which are surprising, but unfortunate, really enjoyed reading this book.
Some quotes I enjoyed:
“Only with the greatest of simplifications, for the sake of convenience, can we say Africa. In reality, except as a geographical term, Africa doesn't exist.”
"Dawn and Dusk - these are the most pleasant hours in Africa. The sun is either not yet scorching, or it is no longer so - it lets you be, lets you live."
"People are not hungry because there is no food in the world. There is plenty of it; there is a surplus in fact. But between those who want to eat and the bursting warehouses stands a tall obstacle indeed: politics."
“This is a very difficult terrain,” Father Johan admitted. “These people ask us how many gods there are in our religion, and whether we have a special god for cattle. We explain to them that there is only one god. This disappoints them. Our religion is better, they say; we have a special god who takes care of cattle. After all, cows are the most important thing!”
This is probably Kapuscinski's best known book, and is his highest rated book on GR. Not without reason. This is 5 stars for me, and this was confirmed by about a third of the way through.
This book just reads well - it deals in detail, with some complex issues, but it doesn't get bogged down, and remains very easy to read, and very ... approachable, I guess. Perhaps this is a nod to the skills of the translator, as well as the author.
It is not a linear narrative book. It jumps around in time and in location. A chapter does not necessarily follow the one before, but sometimes they do. Kapuscinski is known for his reportage, perhaps more so than his books, and this book certainly displays an aspect of reportage, in that it can almost be read as a series of essays - some inter-related, but most not.
Geographically it covers many more countries than I had expected - my shelf list mentions each country that gets more than a passing mention. Kapuscinski obviously has an understanding of the peoples and the cultures, and he writes often with passion and emotion, but also at times with detachment - perhaps this comes from his reportage background too.
But not everyone is a fan. There are professional reviews of Kapuscinski's work where he is heavily criticised, including this book. The most critical is probably John Ryles review linked here. There are a number of points Ryle makes, some of which are unfair (eg calling Kapuscinski out on generalisation - I found the author goes out of his way to explain when he generalises at the start of the book, and from then on is careful to talk about specific tribes or countries), some are bizarre (his calling out of Kapuscinski over a statement about a bookshop - I reread that section to try to understand Kapuscinski's timeline - to me it could be anywhere from 1957 to just before publication in 1998, and therefore Ryle's argument that it isn't true at the time of his review is pointless), and some seem to be correct in that there are errors in Kapuscinski's text (there are a couple of mentions about women not being able to touch cattle). These last criticisms are minor, but nevertheless I have no defence for the author on these.
Irrespective of some minor failings on fact checking, which are surprising, but unfortunate, really enjoyed reading this book.
Some quotes I enjoyed:
“Only with the greatest of simplifications, for the sake of convenience, can we say Africa. In reality, except as a geographical term, Africa doesn't exist.”
"Dawn and Dusk - these are the most pleasant hours in Africa. The sun is either not yet scorching, or it is no longer so - it lets you be, lets you live."
"People are not hungry because there is no food in the world. There is plenty of it; there is a surplus in fact. But between those who want to eat and the bursting warehouses stands a tall obstacle indeed: politics."
“This is a very difficult terrain,” Father Johan admitted. “These people ask us how many gods there are in our religion, and whether we have a special god for cattle. We explain to them that there is only one god. This disappoints them. Our religion is better, they say; we have a special god who takes care of cattle. After all, cows are the most important thing!”
June 5, 2009
Goodreads changed my experience with this book. For much of the time I was reading it, I was mesmerized by the writing, flabbergasted by some of the information about Africa, and convinced I was encountering the continent in a nuanced and subtle and authentic manner. I planned to give a copy to my husband for his birthday and to recommend it to my book group.
Curious about what other readers thought, I looked at some of the almost 500 reviews of it on goodreads, and it was there that I came across one reader's reference to John Ryle's 2001 review of the book in the Times Literary Supplement (http//www.richardwebster.net/johnryle.html). Persuasive and beautifully crafted, that review points out numerous errors of fact within Shadow of the Sun -- errors that Ryle argues betray Kapuściński to be more mythmaker than journalist. Apparently some readers have argued that some of his errors don't matter. To me they do. When Kapuściński tells us, for instance, that the only bookstore in all of Ethiopia is on the university campus there -- and that it was completely empty when he visited it -- and that this is the situation in most of Africa, it makes a profound impression me. When Ryle, the scholar, tells us that on his last visit, "there were at least a half-a-dozen bookshops in Addis Ababa, all with books for sale, in many languages," I have to conclude that Kapuściński was either disgracefully ignorant or downright deceptive in crafting his "tropical baroque" (Ryle's term) fables. The long list of other errors in Ryle's review are similarly damning.
It's such a shame. Kapuściński may have been fearless and intrepid and he certainly wrote like a master. But now he's filled my mind with unforgettable images of Africa that I cannot trust.
Curious about what other readers thought, I looked at some of the almost 500 reviews of it on goodreads, and it was there that I came across one reader's reference to John Ryle's 2001 review of the book in the Times Literary Supplement (http//www.richardwebster.net/johnryle.html). Persuasive and beautifully crafted, that review points out numerous errors of fact within Shadow of the Sun -- errors that Ryle argues betray Kapuściński to be more mythmaker than journalist. Apparently some readers have argued that some of his errors don't matter. To me they do. When Kapuściński tells us, for instance, that the only bookstore in all of Ethiopia is on the university campus there -- and that it was completely empty when he visited it -- and that this is the situation in most of Africa, it makes a profound impression me. When Ryle, the scholar, tells us that on his last visit, "there were at least a half-a-dozen bookshops in Addis Ababa, all with books for sale, in many languages," I have to conclude that Kapuściński was either disgracefully ignorant or downright deceptive in crafting his "tropical baroque" (Ryle's term) fables. The long list of other errors in Ryle's review are similarly damning.
It's such a shame. Kapuściński may have been fearless and intrepid and he certainly wrote like a master. But now he's filled my mind with unforgettable images of Africa that I cannot trust.
September 10, 2023
Mr. Kapuscinski was a reporter, and for a couple of decades was assigned to cover all the news coming from Africa. Except, as he's the first to point out, there's really no such thing as 'Africa' -- the experience of a Rwandan coffee farmer, a fisherman in Mozambique and a Tuareg cattle herder are so distinct that to lump them all together is meaningless.
He shows great skill in picking out specific vignettes to illustrate larger truths. In an essay about Idi Amin, the horrible, greedy, bloodthirsty and allegedly cannibalistic leader of Uganda back in the 1980's:
But, but: Although he was a reporter, and his job was to feed back these sorts of horrific stories about coups and revolutions and despots, he found plenty to admire as well. He was not forced to remain there; he enjoyed living there, and moreover made a point of living the same way as the local populace, renting normal apartments rather than staying at the local Sofitel.
Kapuscinski is no fool, and makes no claims to be 'describing Africa,' an impossible task. He does a very good job of describing the misery of being trapped in heat so brutal that people simply find a patch of shade and stop moving, sometimes for hours; a good job of describing the beauty of the Rwandan landscape and the way people, faced with challenges that we in the Western world can scarcely imagine, find ways to cope. Sometimes he tries to lift his matter-of-fact prose into something loftier, which tends not to work very well.
I enjoyed it, but feel only marginally less ignorant than before.
He shows great skill in picking out specific vignettes to illustrate larger truths. In an essay about Idi Amin, the horrible, greedy, bloodthirsty and allegedly cannibalistic leader of Uganda back in the 1980's:
One day I was wandering in the market in Kampala...Suddenly, a band of children came up the street that led up from the lake, calling, Samaki! Samaki ('fish' in Swahili). People gathered, joyful at the prospect that there would be something to eat. The fisherman threw their catch onto the table, and when the onlookers saw it, they grew still and silent. The fish was fat, enormous. These waters never used to yield such monstrously proportioned, overfed specimens. Everybody knew that for a long time now Amin's henchmen had been dumping the bodies of their victims into the lake, and that crocodiles and meat-eating fish must have been feasting on them. The crowd remained silent. Then, a military vehicle happened by. The soldiers saw the gathering, as well as the fish on the table, and stopped. Those of us standing nearby could see the corpse of a man lying on the truck bed. We saw the soldiers heave the fish on to the truck, throw the dead, barefoot man onto the table for us, and quickly drive away. And we heard their coarse, lunatic laughter.It's really hard to imagine a society sunk so low, but for millions of people over twenty years, this was their reality.
But, but: Although he was a reporter, and his job was to feed back these sorts of horrific stories about coups and revolutions and despots, he found plenty to admire as well. He was not forced to remain there; he enjoyed living there, and moreover made a point of living the same way as the local populace, renting normal apartments rather than staying at the local Sofitel.
The market in Onitsha is where all the roads and paths of mercantile Africa converge. I was fascinated by Onitsha because it is the only market I know of that has spawned its own literature, the Onitsha Market Literature. Dozens of Nigerian writers live and work in Onitsha and are published by as many publishing houses, which have their own printing presses and bookshops in the marketplace. It is a diverse literature--romances, poems, and plays (the latter staged by the numerous little theatrical companies in the market), folk comedies, farces and vaudevilles. There are many didactic tales, countless self-help pamphlets, such as "How to Fall in Love?" or "How to Fall Out of Love?" Many little novellas like "Mabel, or Sweet Honey that has Poured Away," or "Love Games, and Then Disenchantment." Everything is meant to move you, to make you weep, and also to offer instruction and disinterested advice. Literature must be useful, believe the authors from Onitsha, and in the market they find a huge audience thirsty for wisdom and vicarious experience. Whoever cannot afford the brochure masterpiece (or simply doesn't know how to read) can listen to its message for a penny--the admission fee to authors' readings, which take place often here in the shade of stalls piled high with oranges, yams or onions.
Kapuscinski is no fool, and makes no claims to be 'describing Africa,' an impossible task. He does a very good job of describing the misery of being trapped in heat so brutal that people simply find a patch of shade and stop moving, sometimes for hours; a good job of describing the beauty of the Rwandan landscape and the way people, faced with challenges that we in the Western world can scarcely imagine, find ways to cope. Sometimes he tries to lift his matter-of-fact prose into something loftier, which tends not to work very well.
I enjoyed it, but feel only marginally less ignorant than before.
September 14, 2014
This is insightful prose written by a Polish journalist who spent years traveling around Africa (beginning in the 1950s). It is a collection of essays that follow Kapuscinski's time spent in Africa; during coups, wars, racial tensions, hunger, starvation, sickness, and more. Though I didn't love the parts of the book that seemed highly dramatized, what I really liked about this is that Kapuscinski gets into the experience, living it and detailing it. He's not a removed journalist. In fact, this book reads like a great collection of stories. He talks about the racial tensions of that time, the distinctive culture of each country in Africa, the political climate, the people, the food, the terrain, and his own vulnerabilities. There is some sun, even with the shadow.
It is a book filled with details, vivid descriptions, dialect, and history, narrated with storytelling ease. It is the type of book which intertwines serious journalism with storytelling--very appealing.
It is a book filled with details, vivid descriptions, dialect, and history, narrated with storytelling ease. It is the type of book which intertwines serious journalism with storytelling--very appealing.
May 26, 2016
Una maravilla de libro, escrito de manera muy sencilla y agil. En ningún momento es aburrido y he aprendido un montón. Muy interesante, de esos libros en los cuales a medida que vas leyendo no paras de consultar datos en internet.
También te cuenta episodios muy duros: Las hambrunas de Etiopia, el genocidio de Ruanda, los señores de la guerra de Liberia, los niños soldado, la dureza de la vida en el desierto....
Te ayuda a conocer el continente africano y a sus gentes, sus conflictos, sus creencias, etc... y al menos yo me he dado cuenta de lo poco que sabía de todo eso, aunque muchos de esos sucesos los haya visto de pasada en los telediarios.
Altamente recomendable.
También te cuenta episodios muy duros: Las hambrunas de Etiopia, el genocidio de Ruanda, los señores de la guerra de Liberia, los niños soldado, la dureza de la vida en el desierto....
Te ayuda a conocer el continente africano y a sus gentes, sus conflictos, sus creencias, etc... y al menos yo me he dado cuenta de lo poco que sabía de todo eso, aunque muchos de esos sucesos los haya visto de pasada en los telediarios.
Altamente recomendable.
May 24, 2013
Gỗ mun là một cuốn sách về châu Phi. Có lẽ chính xác hơn phải nói Gỗ mun là một cuốn sách châu Phi, bởi lẽ nó không phải là dạng sách du ký của một du khách đến nhìn, ngắm, bình luận đôi điều, rồi trèo lên xe đi. Nó là một cuốn sách của một con người ở bên trong châu Phi, sống cùng châu Phi, chứng kiến nhiều, rất nhiều cái chết châu Phi, và trong nhiều dịp khác nhau đã rất gần với cái chết châu Phi: cái chết có thể đến từ một con rắn hổ mang đại tướng nằm ngay dưới tấm phản, có thể đến từ lũ muỗi khát máu chẳng kém những tay độc tài vốn không phải là hiếm ở châu Phi, có thể đến từ các căn bệnh quái ác của xứ sở này như sốt rét não hay sốt buồn ngủ, có thể đến từ cái nóng kinh hoàng, mà cũng có thể đến từ một họng súng vu vơ nào đấy, mà súng ở châu Phi thì có nhiều và có sẵn, có khi còn dễ tìm hơn cả lương thực hay nước uống. Đọc Gỗ mun, tôi thường xuyên băn khoăn tại sao Kaspuscinski có thể “liều mạng” đến thế? Can đảm, hẳn nhiên, nhưng chỉ can đảm chưa đủ; đam mê, phải có đam mê ngút ngàn mới có thể sống, hành nghề, và viết trong muôn trùng hiểm nguy đến vậy.
Tôi cũng thường xuyên tự hỏi điều gì làm nên sự quyến rũ của cuốn sách. Trong Du hành cùng Herodotus, tôi để ý thấy Kaspucinski hay đặt ra hàng chuỗi câu hỏi liền nhau, ví dụ về Vạn lý trường thành: “Nhìn ngắm cảnh tượng này, chạm vào các khối đá được những người ngã xuống vì lao dịch gom góp về đây qua hàng thế kỷ - để làm gì? Điều đó có ý nghĩa gì không? Có ích lợi gì không?”, hay về một cuộc hành hình: “ Đó là quyết định của ai? Của Đại hội Dân chúng? Của Hội đồng Thành phố? Của Ủy ban Phòng thủ Babylon? Có cuộc tranh luận nào về vấn đề này hay không? Có ai phản đối không? Có ý kiến khác không? Ai quyết định cách giết những người phụ nữ này? Về chuyện bóp ngạt họ. Có các đề nghị khác không? Đem đâm họ bằng giáo? Chém bằng kiếm? Thiêu trên giàn lửa? Ném xuống dòng sông Euphrates chảy qua thành phố?” Còn trong Gỗ mun, là những quan sát làm người đọc giật mình. Chẳng hạn, về gió: “Không khí khi đứng yên chẳng có chút giá trị gì, nhưng chỉ cần chuyển động - nó lập tức có giá”; về con người châu Phi: “Họ, Người Da Đen, chưa bao giờ từng chinh phạt ai, không xâm lược ai, không bắt ai làm nô lệ…Họ thuộc chủng tộc da đen, nhưng trong sạch ”, và “Người châu Phi là một người từ khi chào đời cho đến lúc chết luôn luôn ở ngoài mặt trận, chiến đấu với thiên nhiên đặc biệt là thù nghịch của châu lục mình, và chỉ riêng việc sống và biết cách tồn tại đã là chiến công lớn nhất của anh ta.”
Có rất nhiều quan sát kiểu như thế trong suốt cuốn sách. Chắc chắn bạn có thể nhặt ra nhiều quan sát tinh tế hơn, thú vị hơn. Còn dưới đây, là một vài quan sát của tôi từ những câu chuyện kể của Kapuscinski:
+ Trang 332, đoạn nói về can nhựa: “Nói chung can nhựa có vô số ưu điểm. Một trong các ưu điểm quan trọng nhất là nó thay thế con người khi xếp hàng. Mà xếp hàng lấy nước (nơi có xe chở nước đến) thì phải đứng cả ngày.[…] Khi xe chạy ngang châu Phi, người ta nhìn thấy những hàng can nhựa nhiều màu dài hàng cây số đang chờ nước đến.”
+ Trang 317, đoạn mô tả giao thông trên những con đường cũ, hẹp, chật ních: “Vậy mà ở đây không ai la mắng ai, không ai tức giận ai, không ai văng tục, chửi rủa hay nạt nộ, tất cả mọi người đều kiên nhẫn và yên lặng làm cuộc vượt chướng ngại của mình, lách và né, dùng mưu mẹo, rào đón, xoay xở, chen chúc, và trước hết, quan trọng nhất, là tiến lên. Nếu có tắc nghẽn, mọi người đồng lòng và bình tĩnh cùng tham gia giải tỏa; nếu bị kẹt, tất cả sẽ cùng giải quyết tình huống này, từng mi li mét một.”
+ Trang 304, về shir, cuộc họp của tất cả đàn ông trưởng thành ở Somalia: “Người Somalia không có bất cứ quyền lực tôn ti nào trên mình. Quyền lực duy nhất chính là các cuộc họp như thế này, nơi mọi người đều có thể phát biểu.[…] Shir là một trận om sòm ầm ĩ, những cuộc cãi vã, hò hét, lộn xộn. Nhưng cuối cùng quyết định quan trọng nhất được đưa ra: đi tiếp theo hướng nào. Khi đó ta sẽ xếp hàng theo trật tự định sẵn từ hàng bao thế kỷ và lên đường.”
Bạn thấy gì chưa? Ở châu Phi, người ta xếp hàng để lấy nước, không văng tục hay chửi rủa khi tắc đường, và, có những cuộc họp quyết định hướng đi mà ở đó mọi người đều có thể phát biểu.
Tôi cũng thường xuyên tự hỏi điều gì làm nên sự quyến rũ của cuốn sách. Trong Du hành cùng Herodotus, tôi để ý thấy Kaspucinski hay đặt ra hàng chuỗi câu hỏi liền nhau, ví dụ về Vạn lý trường thành: “Nhìn ngắm cảnh tượng này, chạm vào các khối đá được những người ngã xuống vì lao dịch gom góp về đây qua hàng thế kỷ - để làm gì? Điều đó có ý nghĩa gì không? Có ích lợi gì không?”, hay về một cuộc hành hình: “ Đó là quyết định của ai? Của Đại hội Dân chúng? Của Hội đồng Thành phố? Của Ủy ban Phòng thủ Babylon? Có cuộc tranh luận nào về vấn đề này hay không? Có ai phản đối không? Có ý kiến khác không? Ai quyết định cách giết những người phụ nữ này? Về chuyện bóp ngạt họ. Có các đề nghị khác không? Đem đâm họ bằng giáo? Chém bằng kiếm? Thiêu trên giàn lửa? Ném xuống dòng sông Euphrates chảy qua thành phố?” Còn trong Gỗ mun, là những quan sát làm người đọc giật mình. Chẳng hạn, về gió: “Không khí khi đứng yên chẳng có chút giá trị gì, nhưng chỉ cần chuyển động - nó lập tức có giá”; về con người châu Phi: “Họ, Người Da Đen, chưa bao giờ từng chinh phạt ai, không xâm lược ai, không bắt ai làm nô lệ…Họ thuộc chủng tộc da đen, nhưng trong sạch ”, và “Người châu Phi là một người từ khi chào đời cho đến lúc chết luôn luôn ở ngoài mặt trận, chiến đấu với thiên nhiên đặc biệt là thù nghịch của châu lục mình, và chỉ riêng việc sống và biết cách tồn tại đã là chiến công lớn nhất của anh ta.”
Có rất nhiều quan sát kiểu như thế trong suốt cuốn sách. Chắc chắn bạn có thể nhặt ra nhiều quan sát tinh tế hơn, thú vị hơn. Còn dưới đây, là một vài quan sát của tôi từ những câu chuyện kể của Kapuscinski:
+ Trang 332, đoạn nói về can nhựa: “Nói chung can nhựa có vô số ưu điểm. Một trong các ưu điểm quan trọng nhất là nó thay thế con người khi xếp hàng. Mà xếp hàng lấy nước (nơi có xe chở nước đến) thì phải đứng cả ngày.[…] Khi xe chạy ngang châu Phi, người ta nhìn thấy những hàng can nhựa nhiều màu dài hàng cây số đang chờ nước đến.”
+ Trang 317, đoạn mô tả giao thông trên những con đường cũ, hẹp, chật ních: “Vậy mà ở đây không ai la mắng ai, không ai tức giận ai, không ai văng tục, chửi rủa hay nạt nộ, tất cả mọi người đều kiên nhẫn và yên lặng làm cuộc vượt chướng ngại của mình, lách và né, dùng mưu mẹo, rào đón, xoay xở, chen chúc, và trước hết, quan trọng nhất, là tiến lên. Nếu có tắc nghẽn, mọi người đồng lòng và bình tĩnh cùng tham gia giải tỏa; nếu bị kẹt, tất cả sẽ cùng giải quyết tình huống này, từng mi li mét một.”
+ Trang 304, về shir, cuộc họp của tất cả đàn ông trưởng thành ở Somalia: “Người Somalia không có bất cứ quyền lực tôn ti nào trên mình. Quyền lực duy nhất chính là các cuộc họp như thế này, nơi mọi người đều có thể phát biểu.[…] Shir là một trận om sòm ầm ĩ, những cuộc cãi vã, hò hét, lộn xộn. Nhưng cuối cùng quyết định quan trọng nhất được đưa ra: đi tiếp theo hướng nào. Khi đó ta sẽ xếp hàng theo trật tự định sẵn từ hàng bao thế kỷ và lên đường.”
Bạn thấy gì chưa? Ở châu Phi, người ta xếp hàng để lấy nước, không văng tục hay chửi rủa khi tắc đường, và, có những cuộc họp quyết định hướng đi mà ở đó mọi người đều có thể phát biểu.
February 27, 2018
Quả thực ra rất xấu hổ khi đến giờ mới đọc cuốn sách tuyệt vời này. Có rất nhiều điều để mà xấu hổ: mình biết style của dịch giả (không thể nào yêu thích và dịch 1 tác phẩm bình thường được, chứ đừng nói đến dở), mình biết "trình độ" c���a dịch giả, nên nếu đọc thì sẽ không cần có chút băn khoăn vướng mắc nào về lỗi tác giả hay dịch giả, mình biết sự cẩn thận cẩn trọng và nghiêm túc khi làm việc của dịch giả; mình đã đọc rất nhiều review về tác phẩm này mà vẫn không chịu đọc.
Đúng là gu đọc của mình chỉ tập trung ở mảng Fiction, nên rất ngại đọc non fiction, mà mình lại thích đọc những thứ sáng sủa đẹp đẽ (nhắc đến Châu Phi là thấy không dễ vào rồi), rất định kiến. Để rồi đọc xong lại càng chín người về những nhận định thiển cẩn của mình, vốn hiểu biết hạn hẹp của mình.
Tác phẩm này có thể coi như một cuốn cẩm nang rút gọn về Châu Phi từ lịch sử, địa lý, văn hóa, tập tục, con người. Một Châu Phi bí ẩn, tối tăm dù hứng trọn ánh nắng mặt trời, một Châu Phi sống động thân tình, sôi nổi, cũng rất ngây thơ nhiều khi đến ngơ ngác, Châu Phi hỗn độn lộn xộn nhưng lại rất quy tắc, thật thà. Toàn cuốn sách là những mảng đối lập châu Phi giàu có trù phú, nhưng cũng kiệt quệ; thuộc dạng "cùng đinh rồi" mà vẫn cứ bị vắt kiệt; một lục địa đói khổ nhưng sao vũ khí đẻ ở đâu mà lắm thế; ở nơi nước là thứ quý giá nhất nhưng vẫn thấy hàng km chai nhựa xếp hàng đợi nước trong trật tự v..v..
Mình thích cái tên Gỗ mun này, có cái gì đó vừa quý giá, vừa bền bỉ, vừa dẻo dai, vừa đẹp đẽ, tôn quý. Tên tiếng Anh "The shadow of the Sun" cảm tưởng lại rất định kiến. Và đọc xong mới hiểu rõ tại sao Ryszard Kapuściński lại được ngưỡng mộ và tôn vinh đến như vậy (chỉ cần tưởng tượng 1 phần nhỏ của hành trình ông đã trải qua để viết Gỗ mun)
Một việc xấu hổ nữa là mình đọc cuốn này trên vnthuquan, lỗi typo khá nhiều. Mình vẫn có bản hard đâu đó ở nhà, nhưng phải nhờ có bản soft này mình mới quyết tâm đọc. Hy vọng giờ đã có can đảm để tiếp tục với Giữa lòng tăm tối :D
Đúng là gu đọc của mình chỉ tập trung ở mảng Fiction, nên rất ngại đọc non fiction, mà mình lại thích đọc những thứ sáng sủa đẹp đẽ (nhắc đến Châu Phi là thấy không dễ vào rồi), rất định kiến. Để rồi đọc xong lại càng chín người về những nhận định thiển cẩn của mình, vốn hiểu biết hạn hẹp của mình.
Tác phẩm này có thể coi như một cuốn cẩm nang rút gọn về Châu Phi từ lịch sử, địa lý, văn hóa, tập tục, con người. Một Châu Phi bí ẩn, tối tăm dù hứng trọn ánh nắng mặt trời, một Châu Phi sống động thân tình, sôi nổi, cũng rất ngây thơ nhiều khi đến ngơ ngác, Châu Phi hỗn độn lộn xộn nhưng lại rất quy tắc, thật thà. Toàn cuốn sách là những mảng đối lập châu Phi giàu có trù phú, nhưng cũng kiệt quệ; thuộc dạng "cùng đinh rồi" mà vẫn cứ bị vắt kiệt; một lục địa đói khổ nhưng sao vũ khí đẻ ở đâu mà lắm thế; ở nơi nước là thứ quý giá nhất nhưng vẫn thấy hàng km chai nhựa xếp hàng đợi nước trong trật tự v..v..
Mình thích cái tên Gỗ mun này, có cái gì đó vừa quý giá, vừa bền bỉ, vừa dẻo dai, vừa đẹp đẽ, tôn quý. Tên tiếng Anh "The shadow of the Sun" cảm tưởng lại rất định kiến. Và đọc xong mới hiểu rõ tại sao Ryszard Kapuściński lại được ngưỡng mộ và tôn vinh đến như vậy (chỉ cần tưởng tượng 1 phần nhỏ của hành trình ông đã trải qua để viết Gỗ mun)
Một việc xấu hổ nữa là mình đọc cuốn này trên vnthuquan, lỗi typo khá nhiều. Mình vẫn có bản hard đâu đó ở nhà, nhưng phải nhờ có bản soft này mình mới quyết tâm đọc. Hy vọng giờ đã có can đảm để tiếp tục với Giữa lòng tăm tối :D
February 1, 2019
Kažu da je autor ovim spisom stvorio novi književni žanr, reportažni roman. Kažem da je to irelevantna birokratska kategorija. Čitanje obogaćuje, u svakom mogućem aspektu. Tokom čitanja se sablažnjavate, plačete, histerično smejete, vičete i ričete, živite kontinent koji nikada i nikako nećete živeti, ovako i ovoliko duboko i autenticno. Čitanje koje peče kao saharsko Sunce i boli kao priča o groblju slonova, najtužnija koju sam u životu pročitao.
https://bezimenaknjizevnazadruga.word...
https://bezimenaknjizevnazadruga.word...
April 6, 2023
Otra magnífica obra de este escritor y periodista polaco Ryszard Kapuscinski (1932-2007) quien sabe dotar a sus textos de ingentes dosis de interés y fuerza. En esta ocasión nos ofrece una lectura muy instructiva y reveladora sobre el continente africano, especialmente sobre la parte conocida como África negra o subsahariana. Su crónica inicia hacia 1960, década en la que se gestaron la mayoría de los movimientos independistas africanos que habiendo sido colonias europeas también fueron una inagotable fuente para el cruel e inhumano tráfico de esclavos desde el siglo XV. Según el autor estos agravios han formado en el interior de la raza negra un doloroso sentimiento de inferioridad que los ha acompañado por siglos.
A ratos crónica, a ratos un texto de notas periodísticas, a ratos libro de aventuras, a ratos ensayo de historia y sociología, todo ensamblado perfectamente. El autor demuestra un profundo conocimiento de África, de sus raíces, sus problemas, sus hábitos, su geografía, sus virtudes y sus enormes tragedias. Kapuscinski vivió muy de cerca algunas de las grandes catástrofes del continente africano en donde las tribus y clanes de nativos pasaron a ser colonias europeas, más tarde se independizaron y se formaron países muy incipientes y corruptos que devinieron en dictaduras militares y guerras civiles para después intentar una transición pacífica hacia repúblicas democráticas, entendiendo por democracia lo que a cada quien le conviene.
Francamente mi visión y conocimientos de África eran muy pobres; vagamente conocía el nombre de países de ese continente, podía ubicar a muy pocos en un mapa, sabía de varias de sus tragedias como lo han sido sus feroces dictadores, las epidemias, sequías, guerras civiles y las hambrunas que mataron a millones de personas. También tenía algún conocimiento superficial de sus niveles de pobreza, de sus muy hostiles entornos climáticos y de su carencia de infraestructura básica, pero no sabía mucho más y esta magnífica obra del periodista polaco me ha ampliado mucho el panorama de este continente tan castigado.
Todos los capítulos tienen su particular interés pero los que más se me han quedado grabados son el dedicado al terrible dictador de Uganda Idi Amin Dada, llamado el carnicero de Uganda , que junto con otros dictadores de su calaña como Bokassa, Milton Obote, Juvenal Habyarimana y Mobutu Sese Seko sembraron el terror y la tragedia en sus países y merecen estar entre los grandes villanos de la historia. Otro capítulo que ha quedado en mi memoria es el dedicado al genocidio de Ruanda (Tutsis contra Hutus), también lleno de dramatismo y horrores, así como el dedicado a la formación y transformación de Liberia.
Sorpresivamente positivo me resultó descubrir la existencia de un país llamado Eritrea del que jamás había escuchado su nombre y que se ubica al norte de Etiopía. Más agradable aún me resultó el saber que en ese país se encuentra la ciudad de Asmara, cuya arquitectura italiana y su benigno clima hacen que se antoje visitarla.
Después de terminar el libro queda la sensación de que a pesar de todas las luchas y transformaciones, África tiene aún mucho por hacer en materias como economía, política, derechos humanos, infraestructura, democracia y algunos temas más; esto sin menoscabo de los encomiables esfuerzos y progresos que se han hecho en los últimos cincuenta años.
A ratos crónica, a ratos un texto de notas periodísticas, a ratos libro de aventuras, a ratos ensayo de historia y sociología, todo ensamblado perfectamente. El autor demuestra un profundo conocimiento de África, de sus raíces, sus problemas, sus hábitos, su geografía, sus virtudes y sus enormes tragedias. Kapuscinski vivió muy de cerca algunas de las grandes catástrofes del continente africano en donde las tribus y clanes de nativos pasaron a ser colonias europeas, más tarde se independizaron y se formaron países muy incipientes y corruptos que devinieron en dictaduras militares y guerras civiles para después intentar una transición pacífica hacia repúblicas democráticas, entendiendo por democracia lo que a cada quien le conviene.
Francamente mi visión y conocimientos de África eran muy pobres; vagamente conocía el nombre de países de ese continente, podía ubicar a muy pocos en un mapa, sabía de varias de sus tragedias como lo han sido sus feroces dictadores, las epidemias, sequías, guerras civiles y las hambrunas que mataron a millones de personas. También tenía algún conocimiento superficial de sus niveles de pobreza, de sus muy hostiles entornos climáticos y de su carencia de infraestructura básica, pero no sabía mucho más y esta magnífica obra del periodista polaco me ha ampliado mucho el panorama de este continente tan castigado.
Todos los capítulos tienen su particular interés pero los que más se me han quedado grabados son el dedicado al terrible dictador de Uganda Idi Amin Dada, llamado el carnicero de Uganda , que junto con otros dictadores de su calaña como Bokassa, Milton Obote, Juvenal Habyarimana y Mobutu Sese Seko sembraron el terror y la tragedia en sus países y merecen estar entre los grandes villanos de la historia. Otro capítulo que ha quedado en mi memoria es el dedicado al genocidio de Ruanda (Tutsis contra Hutus), también lleno de dramatismo y horrores, así como el dedicado a la formación y transformación de Liberia.
Sorpresivamente positivo me resultó descubrir la existencia de un país llamado Eritrea del que jamás había escuchado su nombre y que se ubica al norte de Etiopía. Más agradable aún me resultó el saber que en ese país se encuentra la ciudad de Asmara, cuya arquitectura italiana y su benigno clima hacen que se antoje visitarla.
Después de terminar el libro queda la sensación de que a pesar de todas las luchas y transformaciones, África tiene aún mucho por hacer en materias como economía, política, derechos humanos, infraestructura, democracia y algunos temas más; esto sin menoscabo de los encomiables esfuerzos y progresos que se han hecho en los últimos cincuenta años.
February 27, 2017
Kapuściński first went to Africa in 1957 and, over the next forty years, returned whenever he could.
He says ‘I travelled extensively, avoiding official routes, palaces, important personages, and high-level politics. Instead, I opted to hitch rides on passing trucks, wander with nomads through the desert, be the guest of peasants of the tropical savannah. Their life is endless toil, a torment they endure with astonishing patience and good humor.
‘This is therefore not a book about Africa, but rather about some people from there –about encounters with them, and time spent together.’
From Ghana to Guinea, Angola to Addis Abababa, he observed, analysed and wrote. I'm reading a biography of him now, and the reports of his early years would have been infused with socialist zeal for the causes of African nationalism emerging from colonialism. As well as immediate reports of events - wars, revolutions, coups - he wrote longer reports that analysed the background political, social and economic factors underlying immediate events. It's these, I suspect, that formed the basis for this book, because naive enthusiasm for radical change had, through experience, been replaced by a full awareness that the regimes of African rulers could be just as brutal and exploitative as those of outside occupiers, and in the case of rulers such as Idi Amn, far worse, than could have been imagined.
Kapuściński referred to his writing as 'literary reportage', setting it apart from routine agency journalism. The quality of his writing was exceptionally important to him, to the point where his output was often less than his employers would have liked.
This has been an important book for me to read, as I really know very little of Africa, apart from the outlines of its history and geography, and the wars, famines and violence that fill our news services. Certainly, the latter feature largely in The Shadow of the Sun, but Kapuściński does spend time away from the European enclaves in towns and cities, with 'ordinary people' and in the country areas where transport is almost non-existent.
Without transport, he emphasises, exchange is difficult and trade almost impossible. Poverty is inevitable in regions with no transport. Another one of those ideas that states the obvious, and shifts the way you see things ever after.
I borrowed a copy from the library, and have now ordered two copies - one for us and one for our son. I'd like to know if there is anything comparable that is more recent, that could look back on the last 15 years.
He says ‘I travelled extensively, avoiding official routes, palaces, important personages, and high-level politics. Instead, I opted to hitch rides on passing trucks, wander with nomads through the desert, be the guest of peasants of the tropical savannah. Their life is endless toil, a torment they endure with astonishing patience and good humor.
‘This is therefore not a book about Africa, but rather about some people from there –about encounters with them, and time spent together.’
From Ghana to Guinea, Angola to Addis Abababa, he observed, analysed and wrote. I'm reading a biography of him now, and the reports of his early years would have been infused with socialist zeal for the causes of African nationalism emerging from colonialism. As well as immediate reports of events - wars, revolutions, coups - he wrote longer reports that analysed the background political, social and economic factors underlying immediate events. It's these, I suspect, that formed the basis for this book, because naive enthusiasm for radical change had, through experience, been replaced by a full awareness that the regimes of African rulers could be just as brutal and exploitative as those of outside occupiers, and in the case of rulers such as Idi Amn, far worse, than could have been imagined.
Kapuściński referred to his writing as 'literary reportage', setting it apart from routine agency journalism. The quality of his writing was exceptionally important to him, to the point where his output was often less than his employers would have liked.
This has been an important book for me to read, as I really know very little of Africa, apart from the outlines of its history and geography, and the wars, famines and violence that fill our news services. Certainly, the latter feature largely in The Shadow of the Sun, but Kapuściński does spend time away from the European enclaves in towns and cities, with 'ordinary people' and in the country areas where transport is almost non-existent.
Without transport, he emphasises, exchange is difficult and trade almost impossible. Poverty is inevitable in regions with no transport. Another one of those ideas that states the obvious, and shifts the way you see things ever after.
I borrowed a copy from the library, and have now ordered two copies - one for us and one for our son. I'd like to know if there is anything comparable that is more recent, that could look back on the last 15 years.
February 27, 2019
It's interesting to see how few of my GR connections have read this author.
My adult kids and I stumbled on "The Shadow of the Sun" in the famous City Lights bookstore in North Beach, SF. We all read this book and we were hooked. What a find. I just introduced the author to my soon to be son-in-law. He works for USAID and is going to read this book before traveling to West Africa.
The last book I read by the author was Shah of Shahs. I had a friend at the gym, Ali, who was born in Tehran. He became a software engineer for IBM and traveled all over. But his last international assignment happened to be in Tehran during the 1979 revolution. He, his wife, and his mother got out just in time. I gave him Shah of Shahs to read. He said it made him cry.
My adult kids and I stumbled on "The Shadow of the Sun" in the famous City Lights bookstore in North Beach, SF. We all read this book and we were hooked. What a find. I just introduced the author to my soon to be son-in-law. He works for USAID and is going to read this book before traveling to West Africa.
The last book I read by the author was Shah of Shahs. I had a friend at the gym, Ali, who was born in Tehran. He became a software engineer for IBM and traveled all over. But his last international assignment happened to be in Tehran during the 1979 revolution. He, his wife, and his mother got out just in time. I gave him Shah of Shahs to read. He said it made him cry.
August 17, 2021
The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski is many thing, too many things in fact & rendered over far too great a period of time to be completely coherent, though much of the writing, especially the pieces written about Africa later in the author's career, are quite compelling.
Beginning in Ghana in 1958 with a declaration that "the whites in Africa are a sort of outlandish & unseemly intruder" and the hope that Kwame Nkrumah will be an African savior, I sensed that Kapuscinski had been lifted from his native Poland to the African continent without any concept of its pre-colonial history. Rather quickly, he decides that they (speaking of Ghana but seeming to infer all of Africa) lack any sense of time, meaning "western time". The same might have been said of the people in many other countries around the globe whose lives proceed at a much slower pace.
Beyond that, there is a tendency by Kapuscinski to sweeping conclusions & gross generalizations, including "the philosophy that inspired Auschwitz was formulated & set down centuries earlier by slave traders." Many of the slave traders were in fact other Africans & while they may have considered themselves superior to other tribes, they can hardly be lumped in with the perpetrators of the Holocaust.
The author's treatment of Liberia is informative, with that country founded during James Monroe's administration as a place for freed American slaves, but with the result that for 110 years those Americo-Liberians acted as a kind of aristocracy over the indigenous Africans, with Liberia more recently having a particularly bloody landscape. Kapuscinski covers the various wars involving child soldiers, corruption, diamond-fueled leadership & a general disintegration of what had originally been an attempt at bettering the lot of enslaved people.
There are a lot of journalistic exaggerations within the early coverage, much like a writer far removed from his paper aiming to enhance his standing with the editors back in Poland. (To be sure Simon Winchester & other authors do this as well, at least on occasion.) As travel commentary, an encounter with a cobra for example, the book can be enticing but when it is masked as more serious reporting, one hopes for greater clarity of expression. Here is an example of commentary that drifts well beyond the the descriptive to the realm of the unsubstantiated & purely speculative:
The articles on the subterranean Coptic churches at Lalibela in Ethiopia, the horror of Idi Amin in Uganda & the author's account of being stranded in the desert sands of Mauritania are much better. The coverage of Rwanda and the extensive, bloody rift between Tutsis & Hutus is far more thoughtfully composed. But using a German word like Entlosung for "Final Solution" to detail even extensive African tribal warfare seems a stretch. In my view, African tribalism stands at something of a remove from the Nazi extermination of Jews, even if often just as bloody & even though perhaps as many as a million Hutus & Tutsis perished in a small Central African area few could locate on a map.
One of the best chapters in the book is The Well, Kapuscinski's shared journey by camel in northern Somalia, today's semi-independent Somaliland, as distinct from the rest of that fractured country. The mode of transit represents a different culture, a completely different way of life, for...
Surprisingly, in spite of 40 years of experience on the continent, there are few real interactions with the African people he encountered, with much of the book detailed at something of a distance from the inhabitants, even during a long rail journey from Dakar in Senegal to Bamako in Mali as 1 of only 3 Europeans on board a crowded passenger train and also during the author's visit to fabled Timbuktu. Either because of insufficient language skills or the author's disposition, there seems very little personal interchange with the people of Africa.
Might there not not have been some mention of African leaders who did not enrich themselves while instead doing a great deal to empower the lives of their citizens, Julius Nyerere in Tanzania & Nelson Mandela in post-Apartheid South Africa for example? Yes, there is dirt, disease & destitution aplenty on the African continent but it is also a place of hope, as well as caring & sharing people who embody the promise of a better future.
I most enjoyed some of the later chapters within The Shadow of the Sun, with images cast by the author that will stay with me the longest. I gave the book 4*s, in spite of some inconsistencies & over-simplifications, being pleased to have read about Ryszard Kapuscinski's manifold experiences in Africa.
*Within my review are photo images of the author, Liberian child-soldiers, a subterranean Coptic Church at Lalibela, Ethiopia & a baobab tree in Tanzania, where the author spent extensive time.
Beginning in Ghana in 1958 with a declaration that "the whites in Africa are a sort of outlandish & unseemly intruder" and the hope that Kwame Nkrumah will be an African savior, I sensed that Kapuscinski had been lifted from his native Poland to the African continent without any concept of its pre-colonial history. Rather quickly, he decides that they (speaking of Ghana but seeming to infer all of Africa) lack any sense of time, meaning "western time". The same might have been said of the people in many other countries around the globe whose lives proceed at a much slower pace.
Beyond that, there is a tendency by Kapuscinski to sweeping conclusions & gross generalizations, including "the philosophy that inspired Auschwitz was formulated & set down centuries earlier by slave traders." Many of the slave traders were in fact other Africans & while they may have considered themselves superior to other tribes, they can hardly be lumped in with the perpetrators of the Holocaust.
The author's treatment of Liberia is informative, with that country founded during James Monroe's administration as a place for freed American slaves, but with the result that for 110 years those Americo-Liberians acted as a kind of aristocracy over the indigenous Africans, with Liberia more recently having a particularly bloody landscape. Kapuscinski covers the various wars involving child soldiers, corruption, diamond-fueled leadership & a general disintegration of what had originally been an attempt at bettering the lot of enslaved people.
There are a lot of journalistic exaggerations within the early coverage, much like a writer far removed from his paper aiming to enhance his standing with the editors back in Poland. (To be sure Simon Winchester & other authors do this as well, at least on occasion.) As travel commentary, an encounter with a cobra for example, the book can be enticing but when it is masked as more serious reporting, one hopes for greater clarity of expression. Here is an example of commentary that drifts well beyond the the descriptive to the realm of the unsubstantiated & purely speculative:
Ordinary people here (in Zanzibar) treat political cataclysms--coups d'état, military takeovers, revolutions, wars--as phenomena belonging to the realm of nature. They approach them with exactly the same apathetic resignation & fatalism as they would a tempest. One must just wait them out, hiding under the roof, peering out from time to time to observe the sky, then in time resume that which was momentarily interrupted--work, a journey, sitting in the sun.Having lived in Africa, my own evaluation is that its people feel extreme, even paralyzing fear in the face of a cataclysm, just like those in more developed countries. My concern with this kind of writing is that someone just passing through a place like Zanzibar in the midst of upheaval, en route to a potential journalistic scoop, should dispense with such expansive generalizations.
The articles on the subterranean Coptic churches at Lalibela in Ethiopia, the horror of Idi Amin in Uganda & the author's account of being stranded in the desert sands of Mauritania are much better. The coverage of Rwanda and the extensive, bloody rift between Tutsis & Hutus is far more thoughtfully composed. But using a German word like Entlosung for "Final Solution" to detail even extensive African tribal warfare seems a stretch. In my view, African tribalism stands at something of a remove from the Nazi extermination of Jews, even if often just as bloody & even though perhaps as many as a million Hutus & Tutsis perished in a small Central African area few could locate on a map.
One of the best chapters in the book is The Well, Kapuscinski's shared journey by camel in northern Somalia, today's semi-independent Somaliland, as distinct from the rest of that fractured country. The mode of transit represents a different culture, a completely different way of life, for...
as we walked, we were participating in a struggle in ceaseless & dangerous maneuvers, in potential collisions & clashes with other groups that could at any moment end badly. For a Somali is usually born on the road, in a shack-tent or directly under the open sky. He will not know his place of birth; it will not have been written down. Like his parents, he will have no single town or village to call his home.Beyond that, the wealth & status of a Somali depends on & is also defined by his relationship to camels, just as that of the Tutsis is based on an ingrained sense of the importance of cattle. Kapuscinski also informs the reader of an innate quality of sharing whatever one has, at least in much of Africa and even if the village is beset with extreme scarcity of food or other essentials. But even after countless trips to Africa, mostly sub-Saharan Africa, the author still comments:
He has but a single identity--it is determined by his ties to family, to the kinship group, to the clan. When two strangers meet, their personal rapport has no meaning; their relationship, friendly or hostile, whether to attack or to embrace, depends on the current state of affairs between the two clans. The human being, the singular, distinct person, does not exist--or he matters only as part of this or that bloodline.
I have often been unable to determine exactly what the people are doing. Perhaps, they are not doing anything. They don't even talk. They resemble people sitting for hours in a doctor's waiting room but in the end the doctor will arrive. Here no one arrives. No one arrives & no one leaves. The air trembles, undulates, stirs restlessly, like over a kettle of boiling water.Again, when a journalist moves from place to place on a continent as large as Africa, sometimes randomly, it is undoubtedly more difficult to get a proper feel for the context within individual settings. In the later vignettes, Kapuscinski's writing seems more balanced, more nuanced, less critical & his patience with Africa seems enhanced.
Surprisingly, in spite of 40 years of experience on the continent, there are few real interactions with the African people he encountered, with much of the book detailed at something of a distance from the inhabitants, even during a long rail journey from Dakar in Senegal to Bamako in Mali as 1 of only 3 Europeans on board a crowded passenger train and also during the author's visit to fabled Timbuktu. Either because of insufficient language skills or the author's disposition, there seems very little personal interchange with the people of Africa.
Might there not not have been some mention of African leaders who did not enrich themselves while instead doing a great deal to empower the lives of their citizens, Julius Nyerere in Tanzania & Nelson Mandela in post-Apartheid South Africa for example? Yes, there is dirt, disease & destitution aplenty on the African continent but it is also a place of hope, as well as caring & sharing people who embody the promise of a better future.
I most enjoyed some of the later chapters within The Shadow of the Sun, with images cast by the author that will stay with me the longest. I gave the book 4*s, in spite of some inconsistencies & over-simplifications, being pleased to have read about Ryszard Kapuscinski's manifold experiences in Africa.
*Within my review are photo images of the author, Liberian child-soldiers, a subterranean Coptic Church at Lalibela, Ethiopia & a baobab tree in Tanzania, where the author spent extensive time.
December 12, 2011
A book like this would normally I would have imagined taken me very little time to read because I would devour it in a binge of gulpings and swallowings but it took me a good deal longer. In part, for the simple reason that I was taken up with other things and couldn't find the freedom to absorb myself in his world as I would have liked but also for the equally simple but at the same time profound reason that there was just too much to take in.
I listed it as epistolary and though it is not officially so it reads like a series of letters across a long career working in the continent of Africa as it breaks free of colonialism and steps onwards into independence. Sometimes this takes him on a positive journey but far too often it brings him into contact with the dark horror or vicious oppression and poverty. Years ago i read Thomas Eidson's novel ' St Agnes' stand' in which a group of nuns are cornered in the desert of the US and as I read it my throat experienced the parched land in which they were caughtand i swear I felt thirsty. As I read Kapuscinski's accounts of poverty and degradation and the destruction of hope and joy I swear I felt just a little of that pain and sadness. He is masterful at making you see, of making you hear and smell and notice and this is a great grace. Salman Rushdie talks somewhere about novels enabling us to meet and hear and encounter people from whom we would normally flee, this journalist does exactly the same thing.
Across this book you journey through about 50 years and he touches down in various places and times. Tyrants and despots crowd around for your attention alongside the poor and downtrodden. The eternal optimist in his writing argues back and forth with the realist and some lovely achingly beautiful images come about. He writes of political change and geographical oddities, he writes of celebration and colour and welcome and then flips the coin and there is hatred and fear and isolation but through it all is this really wonderful sense of his real love for the African peoples. He does not shy away from the brutality and stupidity of things that have happened; he drives home the guilt and irresponsibilty of the previous colonial powers whilst not ignoring the obvious culpability of the fools and, much worse, the thieves and thugs so often in power now but over-riding it all his eternal optimist seems to gain the upper hand.
He writes fondly of the odd quirks and traditions and emphasizes the importance of cultures listening and learning and therefore beginning to understand each other even if not agreeing. I suppose, in many ways, this is an imprtant service his writing might achieve. He sometimes writes with his tongue firmly in his cheek and I found this an endearing breather after the sadness and bleakness of some of what he had to relate. Speaking of a growing relationship with his driver, Omenka, with whom he worked he writes
:On the day we first met, I gave him nothing as we parted. He walked away without so much as a good bye. I dislike cold, formal relations between people and I felt bad. So the next time I gave him 50 naira (the local currency). He said goodbye and smiled.........'
this, Kapuscinski relates, cheered him and so he gradually increased the amounts he gave to the driver and after each increase the man's response to him also deepened until
'without stretching this story out any longer, suffice it to say that I ended up showering him with so many naira that we were simply unable to part. Omenka's voice was always trembling with emotion, and with tears in his eyes he would swear his everlasting devotion and fidelity '
This humour might seem when taken out of context to be a belitling or criticizing of the driver but within the framework of Kapuscinski's admiration for Africa and its peoples it does not read like that. I chose the example purely cos it made me smile and was a wonderful example of his ability to create in such a way that you met the people of whom he was speaking.
There are so many lovely passages that i could just lift sentences and phrases from almost every chapter but that would be to fragment what is a really lovely creation, someone described it as a mosaic and that is a great image. For him Africa is ever alert to its chance for change and growth and so maybe the very last paragraph is a wonderful clarion call of hope and a good quotation on which to finish
'Everyone walked in silence to their huts, and the boys snuffed out the lights on the tables. It was still night, but Africa's most dazzling moment was approaching - the break of day '
I listed it as epistolary and though it is not officially so it reads like a series of letters across a long career working in the continent of Africa as it breaks free of colonialism and steps onwards into independence. Sometimes this takes him on a positive journey but far too often it brings him into contact with the dark horror or vicious oppression and poverty. Years ago i read Thomas Eidson's novel ' St Agnes' stand' in which a group of nuns are cornered in the desert of the US and as I read it my throat experienced the parched land in which they were caughtand i swear I felt thirsty. As I read Kapuscinski's accounts of poverty and degradation and the destruction of hope and joy I swear I felt just a little of that pain and sadness. He is masterful at making you see, of making you hear and smell and notice and this is a great grace. Salman Rushdie talks somewhere about novels enabling us to meet and hear and encounter people from whom we would normally flee, this journalist does exactly the same thing.
Across this book you journey through about 50 years and he touches down in various places and times. Tyrants and despots crowd around for your attention alongside the poor and downtrodden. The eternal optimist in his writing argues back and forth with the realist and some lovely achingly beautiful images come about. He writes of political change and geographical oddities, he writes of celebration and colour and welcome and then flips the coin and there is hatred and fear and isolation but through it all is this really wonderful sense of his real love for the African peoples. He does not shy away from the brutality and stupidity of things that have happened; he drives home the guilt and irresponsibilty of the previous colonial powers whilst not ignoring the obvious culpability of the fools and, much worse, the thieves and thugs so often in power now but over-riding it all his eternal optimist seems to gain the upper hand.
He writes fondly of the odd quirks and traditions and emphasizes the importance of cultures listening and learning and therefore beginning to understand each other even if not agreeing. I suppose, in many ways, this is an imprtant service his writing might achieve. He sometimes writes with his tongue firmly in his cheek and I found this an endearing breather after the sadness and bleakness of some of what he had to relate. Speaking of a growing relationship with his driver, Omenka, with whom he worked he writes
:On the day we first met, I gave him nothing as we parted. He walked away without so much as a good bye. I dislike cold, formal relations between people and I felt bad. So the next time I gave him 50 naira (the local currency). He said goodbye and smiled.........'
this, Kapuscinski relates, cheered him and so he gradually increased the amounts he gave to the driver and after each increase the man's response to him also deepened until
'without stretching this story out any longer, suffice it to say that I ended up showering him with so many naira that we were simply unable to part. Omenka's voice was always trembling with emotion, and with tears in his eyes he would swear his everlasting devotion and fidelity '
This humour might seem when taken out of context to be a belitling or criticizing of the driver but within the framework of Kapuscinski's admiration for Africa and its peoples it does not read like that. I chose the example purely cos it made me smile and was a wonderful example of his ability to create in such a way that you met the people of whom he was speaking.
There are so many lovely passages that i could just lift sentences and phrases from almost every chapter but that would be to fragment what is a really lovely creation, someone described it as a mosaic and that is a great image. For him Africa is ever alert to its chance for change and growth and so maybe the very last paragraph is a wonderful clarion call of hope and a good quotation on which to finish
'Everyone walked in silence to their huts, and the boys snuffed out the lights on the tables. It was still night, but Africa's most dazzling moment was approaching - the break of day '
January 22, 2015
La mia patria è dove piove
Si tratta di un viaggio nelle terre africane più lontane e inospitali.
Un viaggio iniziato nel 1958 e durato quarant'anni, attraverso moti di indipendenze e guerre fratricide, genocidi e lotte per il potere.
Un viaggio tra la gente, per conoscere, capire, condividere. Con rispetto, col desiderio puro di informarsi, partecipare, descrivere, sempre in modo semplice e obiettivo; senza enfasi né polemiche, senza autocelebrazione né opportunismo; con curiosità e il desiderio profondo di essere uno tra la gente, con un encomiabile coraggio di fronte a situazioni estreme di sopravvivenza o di prima linea. Per poi riferire con chiarezza, solo per amore di verità e di divulgazione.
Corrispondente della stampa polacca, con limitati mezzi economici, ma con la passione del vero Giornalista, Ryszard Kapuściński, riesce a illuminare con la lanterna della scrittura, in questo appassionante reportage, i luoghi più bui e remoti dell'Africa Centrale, quelli che comunemente si confondono in un insieme unico, permettendo la distinzione dei singoli pezzi, dei singoli stati, delle diverse realtà, delle diverse problematiche (l'essenza dell'Africa sta nella sua sconfinata varietà).
Dà storia a un popolo senza memoria: non rimangono documenti, nessuno scrive memoriali (qui la storia è ciò che si ricorda; il prima non esiste).
Dà tempo a chi non conosce scadenze (gli Africani intendono il tempo in modo flessibile, aperto, elastico, soggettivo; sparisce ogni volta che l'uomo sospende la propria azione).
Dà "luogo" a chi non conosce confini (non esiste il concetto di spazio separato, differenziato, diviso; in tutto il villaggio non c'è una siepe, una staccionata, un recinto, una rete, un fossato o un confine [...] Questi uomini non si sentono legati al luogo dove si trovano; se ne vanno in quattro e quattr'otto senza lasciare traccia:[...] l'Africano è sempre stato un uomo in cammino).
Dà riferimenti a chi non conosce distanze (qui il misurare le distanze in chilometri è inutile e induce in errore; si misurano in ore e in giorni).
Un viaggio lungo, tortuoso, avventuroso, eppure affascinante, che accompagna fino agli anni novanta e apre una strada alla comprensione di una situazione che continua tristemente a evolvere e il cui capolinea si allontana.
Si tratta di un viaggio nelle terre africane più lontane e inospitali.
Un viaggio iniziato nel 1958 e durato quarant'anni, attraverso moti di indipendenze e guerre fratricide, genocidi e lotte per il potere.
Un viaggio tra la gente, per conoscere, capire, condividere. Con rispetto, col desiderio puro di informarsi, partecipare, descrivere, sempre in modo semplice e obiettivo; senza enfasi né polemiche, senza autocelebrazione né opportunismo; con curiosità e il desiderio profondo di essere uno tra la gente, con un encomiabile coraggio di fronte a situazioni estreme di sopravvivenza o di prima linea. Per poi riferire con chiarezza, solo per amore di verità e di divulgazione.
Corrispondente della stampa polacca, con limitati mezzi economici, ma con la passione del vero Giornalista, Ryszard Kapuściński, riesce a illuminare con la lanterna della scrittura, in questo appassionante reportage, i luoghi più bui e remoti dell'Africa Centrale, quelli che comunemente si confondono in un insieme unico, permettendo la distinzione dei singoli pezzi, dei singoli stati, delle diverse realtà, delle diverse problematiche (l'essenza dell'Africa sta nella sua sconfinata varietà).
Dà storia a un popolo senza memoria: non rimangono documenti, nessuno scrive memoriali (qui la storia è ciò che si ricorda; il prima non esiste).
Dà tempo a chi non conosce scadenze (gli Africani intendono il tempo in modo flessibile, aperto, elastico, soggettivo; sparisce ogni volta che l'uomo sospende la propria azione).
Dà "luogo" a chi non conosce confini (non esiste il concetto di spazio separato, differenziato, diviso; in tutto il villaggio non c'è una siepe, una staccionata, un recinto, una rete, un fossato o un confine [...] Questi uomini non si sentono legati al luogo dove si trovano; se ne vanno in quattro e quattr'otto senza lasciare traccia:[...] l'Africano è sempre stato un uomo in cammino).
Dà riferimenti a chi non conosce distanze (qui il misurare le distanze in chilometri è inutile e induce in errore; si misurano in ore e in giorni).
Un viaggio lungo, tortuoso, avventuroso, eppure affascinante, che accompagna fino agli anni novanta e apre una strada alla comprensione di una situazione che continua tristemente a evolvere e il cui capolinea si allontana.
August 27, 2023
Випадково взяла цю книжку, взяла і не змогла відірватися. Це множинність репортажів про країни Африки, про окремих людей і цілі повинна, про звичаї та звички, про правила. Це 100% гостросюжетний репортаж, бо є історії, від яких холодне кров — лише факт того, що ця книжка у тебе в руках заземляє і нагадує: він вижив, лев не міг його з‘їсти, а грабіжник убити, бо інакше не було би цього тексту.
Капусцінський заохочує ґуґлити, відкривати карту, дивитися на місця, більше читати про диктаторів та міністрів.
Ідеальна книжка перед довгим забігом літератури про колоніальні досвіди, ідеальна книжка для відпустки.
Капусцінський заохочує ґуґлити, відкривати карту, дивитися на місця, більше читати про диктаторів та міністрів.
Ідеальна книжка перед довгим забігом літератури про колоніальні досвіди, ідеальна книжка для відпустки.
August 31, 2021
“Dawn and dusk—these are the most pleasant hours in Africa. The sun is either not yet scorching, or it is no longer so—it lets you be, lets you live.”
The Polish Kapuściński was a foreign correspondent in Africa for 40 years and lent his name to an international prize for literary reportage. This collection of essays spans decades and lots of countries, yet feels like a cohesive narrative. The author sees many places right on the cusp of independence or in the midst of coup d’états. Living among Africans rather than removed in a white enclave, he develops a voice that is surprisingly undated and non-colonialist. While his presence as the observer is undeniable – especially when he falls ill with malaria and then tuberculosis – he lets the situation on the ground take precedence over the memoir aspect. I read the first half last year and then picked the book back up again to finish this year. The last piece, “In the Shade of a Tree, in Africa” especially stood out. In murderously hot conditions, shade and water are two essentials. A large mango tree serves as an epicenter of activities: schooling, conversation, resting the herds, and so on. I appreciated how Kapuściński never resorts to stereotypes or flattens differences: “Africa is a thousand situations, varied, distinct, even contradictory … everything depends on where and when.”
Along with Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts and the Jan Morris anthology A Writer’s World, this is one of the best few travel books I’ve ever read.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
The Polish Kapuściński was a foreign correspondent in Africa for 40 years and lent his name to an international prize for literary reportage. This collection of essays spans decades and lots of countries, yet feels like a cohesive narrative. The author sees many places right on the cusp of independence or in the midst of coup d’états. Living among Africans rather than removed in a white enclave, he develops a voice that is surprisingly undated and non-colonialist. While his presence as the observer is undeniable – especially when he falls ill with malaria and then tuberculosis – he lets the situation on the ground take precedence over the memoir aspect. I read the first half last year and then picked the book back up again to finish this year. The last piece, “In the Shade of a Tree, in Africa” especially stood out. In murderously hot conditions, shade and water are two essentials. A large mango tree serves as an epicenter of activities: schooling, conversation, resting the herds, and so on. I appreciated how Kapuściński never resorts to stereotypes or flattens differences: “Africa is a thousand situations, varied, distinct, even contradictory … everything depends on where and when.”
Along with Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts and the Jan Morris anthology A Writer’s World, this is one of the best few travel books I’ve ever read.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
August 22, 2019
Novi književni heroj - pesnik, novinar, putopisac, bokser amater, poliglota, koji je bio hapšen 40 puta, preživeo 27 revolucija i državnih udara i 4 smrtne kazne.
Možda bi i najbolji žanr za ove putopise bio magijski realizam - prihvatanje afričke svakodnevice prepune života, gladi i smeha i njenog relativnog protoka vremena bez nametanja evropskih okvira.
Najviše mi se dopao deo o smrti slonova: slonovi nisu imali prirodnih neprijatelja sve do dolaska kolonizatora koji su ih desetkovali zbog slonovače. I gde naći još slonovače, kad niko nikad nije video mrtvog slona?
Tajna koju su Afrikanci godinama krili od belaca (jer je slon za njih sveta životinja) jeste da se groblje slonova nalazi na dnu jezera. Kada ostareli slon ode da se napoji po poslednji put, njegove onemoćale noge više nemaju snage da ga izvuku iz mulja na obali - jedino što mu preostaje jeste da nastavi dalje ka dnu jezera, kao da ga zemlja vuče nazad sebi.
Na samom kraju putopisa, posle bliskog susreta sa slonom, jedan mladi Tanzanijac kaže Kapušćinjskom da je to duša Afrike koja uvek poprima oblik slona, jer njega nijedna druga životinja ne može pokoriti. Ni lav, ni bivol, ni zmija.
Možda bi i najbolji žanr za ove putopise bio magijski realizam - prihvatanje afričke svakodnevice prepune života, gladi i smeha i njenog relativnog protoka vremena bez nametanja evropskih okvira.
Najviše mi se dopao deo o smrti slonova: slonovi nisu imali prirodnih neprijatelja sve do dolaska kolonizatora koji su ih desetkovali zbog slonovače. I gde naći još slonovače, kad niko nikad nije video mrtvog slona?
Tajna koju su Afrikanci godinama krili od belaca (jer je slon za njih sveta životinja) jeste da se groblje slonova nalazi na dnu jezera. Kada ostareli slon ode da se napoji po poslednji put, njegove onemoćale noge više nemaju snage da ga izvuku iz mulja na obali - jedino što mu preostaje jeste da nastavi dalje ka dnu jezera, kao da ga zemlja vuče nazad sebi.
Na samom kraju putopisa, posle bliskog susreta sa slonom, jedan mladi Tanzanijac kaže Kapušćinjskom da je to duša Afrike koja uvek poprima oblik slona, jer njega nijedna druga životinja ne može pokoriti. Ni lav, ni bivol, ni zmija.
January 1, 2009
Kapuściński was a Polish journalist who died in 2007, and who spent time in Africa between the late 1950ies and the 1990ies. Africa was not his only beat, but when he spent time there he spent time with the people and shared their lives when he could. He was the first Polish foreign correspondent to cover Africa and he was always seriously underfunded compared with those representing the big European and American publications and agencies. What he lacked in funds he made up in ingenuity and a willingness to share in the lives of Africans with the result that he got the big stories (a coup in Zanzibar is the subject of one piece) but also the stories about the little people. He went to visit friends in remote villages where there wasn't enough to eat. He traveled in war zones. He met the dictators and sadists who were independent Africa's first rulers. Once traveling with Greek correspondent in the region of Lake Victoria, he took refuge in a hut where he collapsed, exhausted, into a bunk only to discover a huge Egyptian cobra coiled underneath. He and the Greek threw their weight behind a huge metal container (their only weapon) and tried to crush it. The canister did not cut into the snake and they had to wrestle it to death. He got cerebral malaria, nearly died, and lived with the after affects for years.
The pieces in this book are beautifully written, undoubtedly due in part of the translator. Not like journalistic pieces one usually reads, with their pyramid structure and journalistic phrases and short cuts. Kapuściński's scope was broader, from the latest war or coup to serious attempts to characterize African people. He put himself on the line in every piece—it was personal, heartfelt and wise. He engaged seriously with people, didn't just watch from afar or "interview the participants".
One learns a great deal about the history of Africa—and why in a sense there was no history until the Europeans started to divide Africa up into colonies and zones of interest. Why there'd never be a history because there were no documents at all, only the oral stories the people told. The chapter on Rwanda is worth the purchase of the book alone: Kapuściński put the genocide in a context which none of the several books I read on the subject of the Rwandan genocide was able to do. Similarly, another long chapter on a visit to Liberia developed a context for the awful civil wars which began when an army sergeant took charge and carved up the President in his bed—without even a plan for what he'd do when he became leader—and was eventually carved up himself. That essay ends when Kapuściński is allowed to travel up country and meet the tribal people (which the ruling Americo-Liberians called aboriginals when I visited in 1965). They are coming into Monrovia across a bridge and Kapuściński sees a naked man with a Kalashnikov, the others carefully stepping out of his way. "A madman with a Kalashnikov" is how he, quite appropriately, ends the essay.
Kapuściński's focus in this book is mostly East Africa and the Sahara and Sanhel, a few mentions of West Africa, not much of Southern Africa. Not much about the more "civilized" parts of Northern Africa.
The pieces in this book are beautifully written, undoubtedly due in part of the translator. Not like journalistic pieces one usually reads, with their pyramid structure and journalistic phrases and short cuts. Kapuściński's scope was broader, from the latest war or coup to serious attempts to characterize African people. He put himself on the line in every piece—it was personal, heartfelt and wise. He engaged seriously with people, didn't just watch from afar or "interview the participants".
One learns a great deal about the history of Africa—and why in a sense there was no history until the Europeans started to divide Africa up into colonies and zones of interest. Why there'd never be a history because there were no documents at all, only the oral stories the people told. The chapter on Rwanda is worth the purchase of the book alone: Kapuściński put the genocide in a context which none of the several books I read on the subject of the Rwandan genocide was able to do. Similarly, another long chapter on a visit to Liberia developed a context for the awful civil wars which began when an army sergeant took charge and carved up the President in his bed—without even a plan for what he'd do when he became leader—and was eventually carved up himself. That essay ends when Kapuściński is allowed to travel up country and meet the tribal people (which the ruling Americo-Liberians called aboriginals when I visited in 1965). They are coming into Monrovia across a bridge and Kapuściński sees a naked man with a Kalashnikov, the others carefully stepping out of his way. "A madman with a Kalashnikov" is how he, quite appropriately, ends the essay.
Kapuściński's focus in this book is mostly East Africa and the Sahara and Sanhel, a few mentions of West Africa, not much of Southern Africa. Not much about the more "civilized" parts of Northern Africa.
May 7, 2019
podcast o knjizi: https://anchor.fm/bukmarkic/episodes/...
Ebanovina: Moj afrički život nije knjiga koja ima zaplet, za razliku od nekih drugih memoara i romana. Glavna tema ove knjige je Afrika, i to ne bilo koja Afrika – već ona svakodnevna. Kroz različite decenije i najrazličitija mesta na ovom kontinentu, Kapušćinjski na neverovatan način dočarava svakodnevnicu svih ljudi koji žive ovde. Kako bi bio siguran da su njegova iskustva autentična, on je godinama živeo u siromašnim delovima različitih gradova i sela, gde je iskusio kako je to kad ti upadnu u stan i pokradu sve što imaš, kako je to izboriti se sa kobrama, ali isto tako upoznajemo brdo likova kroz mini epizode, kao što je moj omiljeni lik – gospođa koja poseduje samo lonac. Naime, ova epizoda je iz nekog razloga bila izuzetno emotivna, iako je opisana u svega nekoliko paragrafa. Ipak, piscu nije potrebno više od dva paragrafa da izuzetno opiše tu emociju i atmosferu koja tamo vlada. Ovaj momenat konkretno govori o ženi koja, kao što sam rekao, poseduje samo svoj lonac, i na taj način zarađuje novac za sebe i za svoje dete. Ona svakoga dana kuva proso koji prodaje kao male obroke, i na taj način zarađuje novac. U trenutku kada joj budu ukrali lonac ona će shvatiti da više nema način da zaradi svoj novac – što je momenat u kome zaista shvatamo koliko smo srećni što imamo to što imamo, posebno jer su ovakve stvari izuzetno česte u ruralnim delovima Afrike.
Ipak, osim malih epizoda sa lokalnim stanovništvom koji na neki način predstavljaju glavne sporedne likove, glavni lik jeste Afrika sa svom svojom florom, faunom i kulturom. Kroz ovih tristotinak strana saznaćemo na koji način lavovi love, gde slonovi umiru, kako se ubijaju kobre na koje meštani naleću svakodnevno, kao i to u šta veruju i kako se dele. Zaista jedan neverovatan način da upoznamo kulturu koja nam nije toliko bliska.
Ipak, nije Rišard proveo toliko godina u Africi bez da iskusi političku situaciju tamo. Iako politika nije nešto što me zanima niti nešto o čemu volim da čitam, moram da primetim da se pisac potrudio da ovu situaciju objasni na najjasniji mogući način, tako da i politički laik može da je skonta. Ono što je najbitnije jeste da ove epizode mogu da se preskoče bez da to utiče na celokupan osećaj posle knjige, jer je svaki aspekt priča i doživljaj za sebe.
Ebanovina: Moj afrički život je knjiga koju ću uvek preporučivati svakome ko bude tražio memoare ili putopise za preporuku, pre svega jer je nešto što je potpuno drugačije. Zašto bi po pedeseti put čitali istorijsku ljubavnu priču smeštenu u Engleskoj? Zašto bi čitali putopise Španije po deveti put ako možemo da bar na neko vreme osetimo kako je to bilo u Africi sredinom i krajem prošlog veka? Zar nije lepo uvek čitato o nečemu novom?
Ova knjiga je ujedno bila i prva knjiga kojom sam se bavio na Bukmarkić podcastu, a link ka tridesetpetominutnoj epizodu možete pronaći na linku na početku.
Ebanovina: Moj afrički život nije knjiga koja ima zaplet, za razliku od nekih drugih memoara i romana. Glavna tema ove knjige je Afrika, i to ne bilo koja Afrika – već ona svakodnevna. Kroz različite decenije i najrazličitija mesta na ovom kontinentu, Kapušćinjski na neverovatan način dočarava svakodnevnicu svih ljudi koji žive ovde. Kako bi bio siguran da su njegova iskustva autentična, on je godinama živeo u siromašnim delovima različitih gradova i sela, gde je iskusio kako je to kad ti upadnu u stan i pokradu sve što imaš, kako je to izboriti se sa kobrama, ali isto tako upoznajemo brdo likova kroz mini epizode, kao što je moj omiljeni lik – gospođa koja poseduje samo lonac. Naime, ova epizoda je iz nekog razloga bila izuzetno emotivna, iako je opisana u svega nekoliko paragrafa. Ipak, piscu nije potrebno više od dva paragrafa da izuzetno opiše tu emociju i atmosferu koja tamo vlada. Ovaj momenat konkretno govori o ženi koja, kao što sam rekao, poseduje samo svoj lonac, i na taj način zarađuje novac za sebe i za svoje dete. Ona svakoga dana kuva proso koji prodaje kao male obroke, i na taj način zarađuje novac. U trenutku kada joj budu ukrali lonac ona će shvatiti da više nema način da zaradi svoj novac – što je momenat u kome zaista shvatamo koliko smo srećni što imamo to što imamo, posebno jer su ovakve stvari izuzetno česte u ruralnim delovima Afrike.
Ipak, osim malih epizoda sa lokalnim stanovništvom koji na neki način predstavljaju glavne sporedne likove, glavni lik jeste Afrika sa svom svojom florom, faunom i kulturom. Kroz ovih tristotinak strana saznaćemo na koji način lavovi love, gde slonovi umiru, kako se ubijaju kobre na koje meštani naleću svakodnevno, kao i to u šta veruju i kako se dele. Zaista jedan neverovatan način da upoznamo kulturu koja nam nije toliko bliska.
Ipak, nije Rišard proveo toliko godina u Africi bez da iskusi političku situaciju tamo. Iako politika nije nešto što me zanima niti nešto o čemu volim da čitam, moram da primetim da se pisac potrudio da ovu situaciju objasni na najjasniji mogući način, tako da i politički laik može da je skonta. Ono što je najbitnije jeste da ove epizode mogu da se preskoče bez da to utiče na celokupan osećaj posle knjige, jer je svaki aspekt priča i doživljaj za sebe.
Ebanovina: Moj afrički život je knjiga koju ću uvek preporučivati svakome ko bude tražio memoare ili putopise za preporuku, pre svega jer je nešto što je potpuno drugačije. Zašto bi po pedeseti put čitali istorijsku ljubavnu priču smeštenu u Engleskoj? Zašto bi čitali putopise Španije po deveti put ako možemo da bar na neko vreme osetimo kako je to bilo u Africi sredinom i krajem prošlog veka? Zar nije lepo uvek čitato o nečemu novom?
Ova knjiga je ujedno bila i prva knjiga kojom sam se bavio na Bukmarkić podcastu, a link ka tridesetpetominutnoj epizodu možete pronaći na linku na početku.
April 24, 2008
Last fall I read Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski, the Polish journalist. It was his final book (he died in January, 2007) and I enjoyed it very much, having recently read Herodotus' Histories upon which he draws extensively. So it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to reading earlier works by Ryszard Kapuscinski. As an introduction to the mosaic of life that is known as "Africa" The Shadow of the Sun did not disappoint. The book consists of loosely connected essays on the travels and specific experiences of the author interspersed with brief historical commentaries. The looseness of the content is linked together through recurring themes such as the Sun of the title, the importance of minerals and elements, such as water in the Sahara, and the pervasive violence of both nature and man. The latter is evidenced by the presence of "Warlords" in several countries and the recurrence of tribal attacks of blacks on blacks leading at one extreme to examples of genocide as happened in Rwanda. The ubiquity of oppression of one group upon other(s), again both black, was striking and the existence of black on black apartheid (before it ever occurred in the Republic of South Africa) was both illuminating and disillusioning.In a book as much about the plastic water container as the warlord and preferring the African shanty town to the Manhattan skyscraper as a monument to human achievement, what Kapuściński, the author of Shah of Shahs describes is not just Africa, which he claims does not exist except geographically, but more a distillation of life itself, through its religiosity, its trees, the frightening abundance of youth, sun that "curdles the blood" and terrorising, ruling armies that fall in a day. A couple of minor criticisms: the chronology in the book was uncertain at times, infuriatingly so; and, the book would have benefitted from a map for reference as the episodic quality of the content led the reader to and fro across the continent. Kapuscinski is an excellent writer and a literary journalist. He is also a brave man who went into places and faced situations that appeared quite dangerous. His readers benefit from his adventurous personality. This excursion into his world makes me even more interested in reading other examples from his oeuvre.
November 30, 2022
Un viaggio nel tempo e nello spazio, iniziato negli anni cinquanta quando un reporter polacco giovane, appassionato e di belle speranze "vince" la possibilità di andare in Africa come corrispondente per il suo piccolo giornale.
Da qui una serie di capitoli che percorrono buona parte dell'Africa e coprono mezzo secolo, pennellate date con maestria che ci offrono istantanee della vita in Africa.
La vita nei villaggi e quella nelle città, gli usi e le tradizioni secolari di chi vi abita, le divisioni che da sempre separano i suoi abitanti, il rapporto particolare tra clima, geografia e abitanti.
La cultura di un continente dove la natura detta i suoi ritmi imperiosi da sempre, e dove l'uomo sopravvive adattandosi, piegandosi alla natura invece di piegarla al proprio volere.
Ma anche la forma mentis creata da secoli di colonialismo e di schiavismo, che hanno fatto sì che pure quando le catene sono cadute, l'unica forma di rapporto coi "diversi" che molte popolazioni conoscevano fossero ormai quelle apprese a caro prezzo. E quindi sopraffazione o miseria, crudeltà o schiavitù.
Molto bello, un autore che dimostra grande empatia e grande comprensione dello spirito umano, dei meccanismi dietro le abitudini e gli eventi storici.
E mi ha chiarito parecchi retroscena relativi a eventi di cui avevi sentito parlare senza mai interessarmene troppo.
Da qui una serie di capitoli che percorrono buona parte dell'Africa e coprono mezzo secolo, pennellate date con maestria che ci offrono istantanee della vita in Africa.
La vita nei villaggi e quella nelle città, gli usi e le tradizioni secolari di chi vi abita, le divisioni che da sempre separano i suoi abitanti, il rapporto particolare tra clima, geografia e abitanti.
La cultura di un continente dove la natura detta i suoi ritmi imperiosi da sempre, e dove l'uomo sopravvive adattandosi, piegandosi alla natura invece di piegarla al proprio volere.
Ma anche la forma mentis creata da secoli di colonialismo e di schiavismo, che hanno fatto sì che pure quando le catene sono cadute, l'unica forma di rapporto coi "diversi" che molte popolazioni conoscevano fossero ormai quelle apprese a caro prezzo. E quindi sopraffazione o miseria, crudeltà o schiavitù.
Molto bello, un autore che dimostra grande empatia e grande comprensione dello spirito umano, dei meccanismi dietro le abitudini e gli eventi storici.
E mi ha chiarito parecchi retroscena relativi a eventi di cui avevi sentito parlare senza mai interessarmene troppo.
September 17, 2017
Un viaje a las venas de África, relatos de sitios casi vírgenes y culturas apenas en contacto con la civilización moderna.. testigo vivencial en primer persona de la descolonización y tiranía local de esos tiempos. Solo como el gran maestro puede redactar. Se mencionan miles de tribus exterminadas, se presenta Africa como un continente politico que sus pueblos desconocen tales fronteras. Cada tribu con idioma y costumbres muy distintas. Una manera profunda de entender el continente de fines de los cincuentas a principios de los noventas. Excelente material informativo.
October 5, 2024
A remarkable tour of the continent through the eyes of a European journalist who traveled well beyond the white areas of big cities, and also covered events such as coups and transitions to independence. His insights run deep and are told well. A hard read because of the content but I feel I got a good and important review of many areas and peoples.
"In those places where conflict has lasted decades (as in Angola or Sudan), the majority of older people were killed long ago, or perished from hunger and disease; children remain, and it is they who are doing the fighting. The bloody chaos in which various African countries are plunged has spawned tens of thousands of orphans, hungry and homeless. They look for anyone who might feed and shelter them, and it is easiest to find food where the troops are, because soldiers have the best chances of obtaining it: weapons in these countries are not only for waging war, but are means of survival--sometimes the only means." p.148
"Someone brought from London a Somali quarterly that had been published there in the summer of 1993...I counted: of the 17 authors represented-preeminent Somali intellectuals. scientists, and writers0 15 reside abroad. Here is one of Africa's problems: an intelligentsia lives for the most part outside its borders, in the U.S., in London, Paris, Rome. Remaining in their native countries are, at the bottom, masses of illiterate, downtrodden, utterly exploited peasants; at the top, the corrupt bureaucracy or arrogant, coarse soldiers.... How is Africa to develop, participate in the great transformation of the world, without an intelligentsia? Without its own educated middle class? Furthermore, if an African scholar or writer is persecuted in his own country, most frequently he will not seek shelter in another country on his continent, but in Boston, Los Angeles, Stockholm, or Geneva." pp.223-4
"...the strength of Europe and of its culture, in contrast to other cultures, lies in its bent for criticism, above all, for self-criticism--in its art of analysis and inquiry, in its endless seeking, in its restlessness.... Other cultures do not have this critical spirit. More--they are inclined to pride, to thinking that all that belongs to them is perfect; they are, in short, uncritical in relation to themselves. They lay the blame for all that is evil on others, on other forces (conspiracies, agents, foreign domination of one sort or another). They consider all criticism to be a malevolent attack, a sign of discrimination, racism, etc. ... Instead of being self-critical, they are full of countless grudges, complexes, envies, peeves, manias. The effect of all this is they are culturally, permanently, structurally incapable of progress, incapable of engendering within themselves the will to transform and evolve." (Not the author's opinion but his telling of what a longtime elderly English resident imparted to him) pp. 227-8
"During precolonial times, and hence not so long ago, more than 10,000 little states, kingdoms, ethnic unions, and federations existed in Africa. Roland Oliver, a historian at the University of London, draws attention to the general paradox in his book, The African Experience (1991): it has become common parlance to say that European colonialists partitioned Africa. Partitioned? Oliver marvels. Colonialism was a brutal unification, brought about by fire and sword. Ten thousand entities reduced to fifty." p. 323
"In those places where conflict has lasted decades (as in Angola or Sudan), the majority of older people were killed long ago, or perished from hunger and disease; children remain, and it is they who are doing the fighting. The bloody chaos in which various African countries are plunged has spawned tens of thousands of orphans, hungry and homeless. They look for anyone who might feed and shelter them, and it is easiest to find food where the troops are, because soldiers have the best chances of obtaining it: weapons in these countries are not only for waging war, but are means of survival--sometimes the only means." p.148
"Someone brought from London a Somali quarterly that had been published there in the summer of 1993...I counted: of the 17 authors represented-preeminent Somali intellectuals. scientists, and writers0 15 reside abroad. Here is one of Africa's problems: an intelligentsia lives for the most part outside its borders, in the U.S., in London, Paris, Rome. Remaining in their native countries are, at the bottom, masses of illiterate, downtrodden, utterly exploited peasants; at the top, the corrupt bureaucracy or arrogant, coarse soldiers.... How is Africa to develop, participate in the great transformation of the world, without an intelligentsia? Without its own educated middle class? Furthermore, if an African scholar or writer is persecuted in his own country, most frequently he will not seek shelter in another country on his continent, but in Boston, Los Angeles, Stockholm, or Geneva." pp.223-4
"...the strength of Europe and of its culture, in contrast to other cultures, lies in its bent for criticism, above all, for self-criticism--in its art of analysis and inquiry, in its endless seeking, in its restlessness.... Other cultures do not have this critical spirit. More--they are inclined to pride, to thinking that all that belongs to them is perfect; they are, in short, uncritical in relation to themselves. They lay the blame for all that is evil on others, on other forces (conspiracies, agents, foreign domination of one sort or another). They consider all criticism to be a malevolent attack, a sign of discrimination, racism, etc. ... Instead of being self-critical, they are full of countless grudges, complexes, envies, peeves, manias. The effect of all this is they are culturally, permanently, structurally incapable of progress, incapable of engendering within themselves the will to transform and evolve." (Not the author's opinion but his telling of what a longtime elderly English resident imparted to him) pp. 227-8
"During precolonial times, and hence not so long ago, more than 10,000 little states, kingdoms, ethnic unions, and federations existed in Africa. Roland Oliver, a historian at the University of London, draws attention to the general paradox in his book, The African Experience (1991): it has become common parlance to say that European colonialists partitioned Africa. Partitioned? Oliver marvels. Colonialism was a brutal unification, brought about by fire and sword. Ten thousand entities reduced to fifty." p. 323
December 10, 2022
Dec 9, 9pm ~~ Review asap.
Dec 10, 135pm ~~ I first 'met' this author in 2020 when I read his book Travels With Herodotus. I enjoyed that one so much that I ordered more by RK but this is the first of those that I have managed to get to.
Published originally in Polish in 1998, this translation is from 2001. The essays here cover almost all of the continent of Africa, and RK shows the reader the history of many countries, the character of many people, and the spirit of Africa itself.
Kaupuscinski spent forty years as a foreign correspondent, reporting from all over the world. This from a biographical paragraph in this book:
"He witnessed twenty-seven coups and revolutions and was sentenced to death four times. HIs books have been translated into nineteen languages."
RK writes in a way that makes the reader experience everything he had, from desert furnaces to steaming jungles. And he shares basic history without turning into a dry lecturer. I learned details about situations that I remember seeing in the news but never completely understanding. Rwanda, Liberia, Ethiopia, these and more are covered here and made familiar to the reader.
I liked the author for his attitude while he was on the road. He wanted to see and write about not the tourist Africa, but the real one. This is from a couple of paragraphs RK included as a sort of foreword:
"I lived in Africa for several years. I first went there in 1957. Then, over the next forty years, I returned whenever the opportunity arose. I traveled extensively, avoiding official routes, palaces, important personages, and high-level politics. Instead, I opted to hitch rides on passing trucks, wander with nomads through the desert, be the guest of peasants of the tropical savannah. Their life is endless toil, a torment they endure with astonishing patience and good humor."
This was a wonderful book, I enjoyed it very much and will certainly read it again some day. I also plan to include RK's other titles in my reading plans for 2023. There are already quite a few piles on my Next Year desk, but a another little one won't hurt, right? Right!
Dec 10, 135pm ~~ I first 'met' this author in 2020 when I read his book Travels With Herodotus. I enjoyed that one so much that I ordered more by RK but this is the first of those that I have managed to get to.
Published originally in Polish in 1998, this translation is from 2001. The essays here cover almost all of the continent of Africa, and RK shows the reader the history of many countries, the character of many people, and the spirit of Africa itself.
Kaupuscinski spent forty years as a foreign correspondent, reporting from all over the world. This from a biographical paragraph in this book:
"He witnessed twenty-seven coups and revolutions and was sentenced to death four times. HIs books have been translated into nineteen languages."
RK writes in a way that makes the reader experience everything he had, from desert furnaces to steaming jungles. And he shares basic history without turning into a dry lecturer. I learned details about situations that I remember seeing in the news but never completely understanding. Rwanda, Liberia, Ethiopia, these and more are covered here and made familiar to the reader.
I liked the author for his attitude while he was on the road. He wanted to see and write about not the tourist Africa, but the real one. This is from a couple of paragraphs RK included as a sort of foreword:
"I lived in Africa for several years. I first went there in 1957. Then, over the next forty years, I returned whenever the opportunity arose. I traveled extensively, avoiding official routes, palaces, important personages, and high-level politics. Instead, I opted to hitch rides on passing trucks, wander with nomads through the desert, be the guest of peasants of the tropical savannah. Their life is endless toil, a torment they endure with astonishing patience and good humor."
This was a wonderful book, I enjoyed it very much and will certainly read it again some day. I also plan to include RK's other titles in my reading plans for 2023. There are already quite a few piles on my Next Year desk, but a another little one won't hurt, right? Right!
April 6, 2013
Shifting seamlessly from vignettes of daily life to grand excursions into Africa's turbulent political past, Kapuscinski zig-zags across vast expanses of scorching desert and lush greenery in this masterful piece of journalistic travel writing. He describes people, politics and landscape with equal ease. The lioness stalking in the tall grasses is as riveting as the utterly fascinating character study of Idi Amin.
The first chapter was studded with generalisations about Africa and Africans that made my inner anthropologist cringe, and is the main reason I am docking this book one star. I am pleased to note that he dropped the act soon afterward to delve into the swirling mass of stories he painstakingly picked from his decades of experience on the continent. He breathes in the poverty around him - its raw smells, its despairing, languishing presence. The chapter on Liberia, a country I knew very little about, was absolutely terrifying. Kapuscinski will zip you across the continent with dizzying alacrity and plunge you waist-deep into the lives of a scarcely known tribe: the Amba, the Kakwa, the Krahn. Child soldiers, genocide, and the spectre of death haunt these pages. My heart broke then broke again. The dusty, treacherous drives and the oppressive heat come alive. Flickering candlelight filled my bedroom and my throat ached with his maddening thirst. If you have ever been to Africa, this book will transport you back there. If not, this book offers some of the best armchair-travelling I've yet encountered.
The first chapter was studded with generalisations about Africa and Africans that made my inner anthropologist cringe, and is the main reason I am docking this book one star. I am pleased to note that he dropped the act soon afterward to delve into the swirling mass of stories he painstakingly picked from his decades of experience on the continent. He breathes in the poverty around him - its raw smells, its despairing, languishing presence. The chapter on Liberia, a country I knew very little about, was absolutely terrifying. Kapuscinski will zip you across the continent with dizzying alacrity and plunge you waist-deep into the lives of a scarcely known tribe: the Amba, the Kakwa, the Krahn. Child soldiers, genocide, and the spectre of death haunt these pages. My heart broke then broke again. The dusty, treacherous drives and the oppressive heat come alive. Flickering candlelight filled my bedroom and my throat ached with his maddening thirst. If you have ever been to Africa, this book will transport you back there. If not, this book offers some of the best armchair-travelling I've yet encountered.
March 15, 2021
Đây là một cuốn du ký? một cuốn phóng sự? Hay là một dạng hồi ký - báo chí? Hay lại là tiểu thuyết nhỉ? Trời ơi. Không thể xếp nó theo loại được, bởi vì, cuốn sách này đã giúp tôi có một cái nhìn rất khác về Châu Phi, xóa bỏ những định kiến mà trước đây tôi luôn mang, theo tâm lý học gọi là "Một dạng niềm tin vào sự thật lỏng lẻo"; Một Châu Phi rộng lớn, hùng vĩ với những con người, bộ lạc và dân tộc đã chịu nhiều khắc nghiệt của cuộc đời, số phận. Nhưng nó đẹp, lấp lánh, diệu kỳ và tôi tin rằng, một ngày kia Châu Phi rồi sẽ khác.
Một cuốn sách dạy cho chúng ta rất nhiều thứ về cách viết, triển khai, lấy thông tin và cho thấy được một sự tận tụy thuần khiết với một trái tim rộng mở của tác giả. Masterpiece.
Một cuốn sách dạy cho chúng ta rất nhiều thứ về cách viết, triển khai, lấy thông tin và cho thấy được một sự tận tụy thuần khiết với một trái tim rộng mở của tác giả. Masterpiece.
November 18, 2015
"This is therefore not a book about Africa, but rather about some people from there (...) The continent is too large to describe. (...) Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say "Africa". In reality, except as geographical appellation, Africa does not exist."
So the foreword reads, and I was eager for an account that is described by Sunday Times as having been "written with love and longing, as sharp and life enhancing as the sun that rises on an African morning"
But, that was it. "The Shadow" in the title should have warned me!
The author goes ahead to weave a narration that depicts Africa as a barren, stifling hot, Malaria ridden, hunger stricken continent (truly in the stereotypical spirit of "Africa is a country"), full of lazy people who know nothing but poverty and desolation, whose days while by in vacant idle stares, as there's nothing to do in this godforsaken place anyway!
He claims to search for the "Real Africa", which takes him to the most horrible of the worst neighborhoods; pg. 109: I want to live in an African street, in an African building. How else can I get to know this city?- And since the affluent neighborhood is not African enough, he has to go to the overcrowded rat infested slum, where "real Africans" live. Those in Ikoyi aren't African enough -I mean, how can black Africans afford the same wealth as the Europeans, right?
He somehow manages to visit the poorest neighborhoods, most far-flung villages, hang out with the most desperate and wretched of all people, and then he goes ahead and casts them as representative of Africa/ns, going against what he promised in the foreword.
What's even more annoying is to have this piece of balderdash praised as "one of the finest books about Africa", "a beautiful and extraordinary book", "a marvel of humane, sorrowful and Lucid observation..." :(
So the foreword reads, and I was eager for an account that is described by Sunday Times as having been "written with love and longing, as sharp and life enhancing as the sun that rises on an African morning"
But, that was it. "The Shadow" in the title should have warned me!
The author goes ahead to weave a narration that depicts Africa as a barren, stifling hot, Malaria ridden, hunger stricken continent (truly in the stereotypical spirit of "Africa is a country"), full of lazy people who know nothing but poverty and desolation, whose days while by in vacant idle stares, as there's nothing to do in this godforsaken place anyway!
He claims to search for the "Real Africa", which takes him to the most horrible of the worst neighborhoods; pg. 109: I want to live in an African street, in an African building. How else can I get to know this city?- And since the affluent neighborhood is not African enough, he has to go to the overcrowded rat infested slum, where "real Africans" live. Those in Ikoyi aren't African enough -I mean, how can black Africans afford the same wealth as the Europeans, right?
He somehow manages to visit the poorest neighborhoods, most far-flung villages, hang out with the most desperate and wretched of all people, and then he goes ahead and casts them as representative of Africa/ns, going against what he promised in the foreword.
What's even more annoying is to have this piece of balderdash praised as "one of the finest books about Africa", "a beautiful and extraordinary book", "a marvel of humane, sorrowful and Lucid observation..." :(
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