The book If the Whole of Africa… comprises 15 texts from the years 1962–1966, written by Ryszard Kapuściński during his work on the African continent.

“In Africa I was not looking for adventure, I did not hunt elephants, I did not dig for diamonds,” writes Kapuściński in the preface. “I was a correspondent of the Polish Press Agency and I had to write about what I heard or saw there, about what was happening there. And much was happening. I spent nearly six years in Africa in its most turbulent and restless period — full, moreover, of hopes, though sometimes overly easy ones. It was a turning point between two epochs: colonialism was ending, independence was beginning. That change, that upheaval, that revolution — I tried to describe it.”

The volume was published in 1969 by Czytelnik, while Ryszard Kapuściński was working as a PAP correspondent in Latin America. The book immediately won the recognition of readers. He received for it the “Silver Globe” — the prize of the monthly Widnokręgi.

We are reissuing it after 40 years, because — as Professor Jan Milewski, Africa specialist at Warsaw University and SWPS, wrote in his “Afterword” — “If the Whole of Africa… is one of the most important books in world literature on the beginnings of independent Africa. Kapuściński, like Thucydides, created a great picture of the history in which he participated. But its value extends far beyond the historical testimony of the first decade of African independence. The author managed, as few analysts of those events did, to understand and show the most important challenges and difficulties that young African states and elites would face in the approaching future. He managed to read those events as parts of long-term historical processes that continue to this day. This is why many parts of this book read as reflections on contemporary dilemmas.”

The reissue has been enriched with photographs — agency photographs and those taken by Ryszard Kapuściński himself — of African leaders of the time, an up-to-date political map of the continent (as of July 2011), and an index of persons.

At last! How did it happen that this book had to wait forty years for a reissue? This is one of the most important works on Africa, on its period of storm and stress. Records of remarkable proceedings (e.g., “Africa at the Round Table”), heroes already historical (among others Nyerere, Boumediene, Kenyatta), broad panoramas of events across different countries of the continent. Reportage and thorough analysis of the African revolution — astonishingly topical.

Małgorzata Szejnert

“If the Whole of Africa…” is a fascinating testimony to the spirit of the era of Uhuru (in Swahili: “independence”) and the beginnings of active Pan-Africanism. Kapuściński fills the map of these processes with the pixels of momentous events and seemingly trivial occurrences, equally significant cognitively and compositionally. He also builds hypotheses and medium-term prognoses — for example, he accurately predicted the progress of African integration at the sub-regional level as a trend and model more effective than a pan-continental one. And he told all of this savouring the local idiom and rhetoric, with great care for beautiful resonance.

Eugeniusz Rzewuski

History happens before his eyes — Ryszard Kapuściński will not let it escape. The sharpness of his gaze and the depth of his analyses are unmatched.

Olga Stanisławska

For someone who has taken a liking to reportage, and to Africa in particular, this book is like a primer. Everything is here. Extraordinary sensitivity and perceptiveness, and above all a charismatic poetics of storytelling about revolutions, crumbling old orders and the birth of new ones, the carefree joy of hope, the bitterness of inevitable disappointments, and the longing for what is irretrievably passing.

Wojciech Jagielski

A continent of the future or a distorted mirror of the Old World? The anxieties and doubts recorded by Kapuściński are a repetition of the critical observations contained in African prose. “If the Whole of Africa…” is a superb book, excellent reading.

Stanisław Zieliński, “Kultura” 1969, no. 14

Ryszard Kapuściński knows contemporary Africa as few do. What is more — he understands it. He looks at it through the eyes of a European who feels how Africans think. That is a rare gift!

Tadeusz M. Pasierbiński, “Polityka” 1969, no. 17

In Kapuściński’s book there is anger and astonishment, sympathy and a measure of irony — including at his own expense. This is undoubtedly an outstanding book.

Kazimierz Dziewanowski, “Życie Warszawy” 1969, no. 89

source: kapuscinski.info