Below is a working list of Polish editions of Ryszard Kapuściński’s “Christ with a Rifle on His Shoulder”. ISBN numbers are included only where they could be reasonably confirmed in bibliographic and publishing sources.

Polish Editions

First Edition Year of publication: 1975 Publisher: Czytelnik Print run: 15,000 copies Cover price: 5 zł Series: “Fronty” ISBN: no confirmed number

Second Edition Year of publication: 1976 Publisher: Czytelnik Print run: 20,000 copies ISBN: no confirmed number

Third Edition Year of publication: 1988 Publisher: Czytelnik Print run: 30,000 copies Series: Vol. 1, “Wrzenie świata” — collected edition with “A Kirgiz Dismounts” ISBN: 83-07-01833-1

Fourth Edition Year of publication: 1990 Publisher: Czytelnik Print run: 50,000 copies Series: Vol. 1, “Wrzenie świata” — collected edition with “A Kirgiz Dismounts” ISBN: 83-07-02160-X

Sixth Edition Year of publication: 2007 Publisher: Czytelnik Series: Vol. 1, “Wrzenie świata” — collected edition with “A Kirgiz Dismounts” ISBN: 978-83-07-03169-9

Seventh Edition Year of publication: 2013 Publisher: Czytelnik Series: Vol. 1, “Wrzenie świata” — collected edition with “A Kirgiz Dismounts” ISBN: 978-83-07-03309-9

Table of Contents

I The Fedayeen. Cain and Abel. The Way of the Cross. Battle for the Golan Heights.

II Christ with a Rifle on His Shoulder. A Man Fears a Man. Victoriano Gomez Before the TV Cameras. Death of an Ambassador. Guevara and Allende.

III The First Shot for Mozambique.

Preface to the Book

Shortly after the assassination of Che Guevara, the Argentine revolutionary painter Carlos Alonso created a work that instantly became famous throughout Latin America and was reproduced in thousands of copies as a poster appearing on the walls of Havana and Caracas, in university halls in Lima and Santiago de Chile, in the homes of Brazilian workers, and in the cottages of Mexican peasants. Alonso painted the figure of Christ with a rifle on his shoulder — a figure reminiscent in appearance and dress of a partisan from Cuba, Bolivia, or Colombia. In countries under military dictatorship the police tore this poster from the walls, and in Paraguay students who hung it on the streets of Asunción by night were thrown into prison.

Carlos Alonso’s image became a pictorial symbol of the person, fighter, and partisan who, with weapon in hand, in the most difficult conditions, struggles against violence and injustice for a different, just world — a world open to all people.

Such people — fighting and dying on the arid soil of the Middle East, in the mountains of Latin America, in the African bush — are the heroes of these reportages. Hence the title of this book.

“Christ with a Rifle on His Shoulder” is a collection of reportages from the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. It is a book about partisan movements operating in the late 1960s, which I had the opportunity to encounter and observe. The title is connected with the figure of the Colombian priest Camilo Torres — who lived among the poor Latin American peasantry and, in his cassock and carrying a rifle, went to fight with a partisan unit in Colombia, where he was killed.

Ryszard Kapuściński

source: kapuscinski.info