Author: Mariusz Szczygieł. Source: Gazeta Wyborcza. Date of publication: 1 October 2003.

These are excerpts from interviews given by Ryszard Kapuściński: reflections on reportage, on travel, on poverty, on the media.

As is well known, Ryszard Kapuściński sees the world globally (unlike us, who look locally). When Francis Fukuyama came to Poland to explain why the end of history had not arrived, Kapuściński was invited to debate with him, because he “assembles fragments of general truths into a whole, paying no attention to smaller, more uncertain ones” (as was written in Voice Literary Supplement). To intellectuals who today only browse books because they cannot read them (time ever shorter, stimuli ever more numerous, the character of civilisation ever more flickering) — to those neurotic consumers of culture — Kapuściński suggests what is important. What we regard as obvious, he rediscovers for us. He knows how superficial we are, so he even adapted his philosophical Lapidaria to our capacities.

The structure of every collection allows fragments to be dosed to oneself, topics to be skipped around, but also uncomfortable truths to be bypassed without losing the thread. Kapuściński’s admirers now receive yet another volume of reflections on the world. But not Lapidarium 6, which everyone expects from the Master, but a much more intriguing bonus — A Portrait of the Reporter. These are excerpts from interviews that Kapuściński gave in Poland and abroad. The interviews have been cut up, ideas abstracted and selected. Here we find reflections on reportage, on travel, on poverty, on the media, and on a few other subjects. Kapuściński — a former press correspondent, today an essayist — warns: do not trust the media.

The most untruthful image of the world is formed by television — viewers are convinced that our globe is saturated with wars, conflicts, and terrorism, whereas these phenomena affect only a few points on earth. The most important problem in the world is terrible poverty, which is not shown because it is static. Poverty is at best a tourist attraction on the Travel channel. Hitler deceived 40 million people — Kapuściński writes — Stalin 200 million, but television deceives three billion.

A Portrait of the Reporter can be excellent reading for students, teachers, tourists, journalists, thinkers. Intellectual nourishment for all, which I sincerely recommend. For everyone — but, unfortunately, not for me (and I do not mean to place myself above everyone). The book does not satisfy me. The editor of the selection draws on several dozen interviews, of which only eight are foreign interviews. With all due respect, I read conversations with the Master conducted by my colleagues from Gazeta Olsztyńska or Gazeta Wyborcza, but I would rather find out what people ask Kapuściński not in Olsztyn but in Japan. The foreword tells us that the author of Imperium has given hundreds of interviews to the Greek, Vietnamese, and Mexican press. But we get none of that. We will not find out what is important about Kapuściński to the Vietnamese, and what to Americans. If Kapuściński is the most translated Polish writer and his books have appeared in 26 languages, I would like to read one interview from each country where he has been published. A Portrait of the Reporter would then not be material for a master’s thesis on the reception of Kapuściński in the provinces.

On 4 October Ryszard Kapuściński will give a lecture during the ceremony awarding the first edition of the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage in Berlin. The annually awarded prize (100,000 euro and fellowships) is a joint undertaking of Lettre International, the Aventis Foundation, and the Goethe Institute.

source: kapuscinski.info