Lapidarium II

About the Book

Lapidarium II is the second volume of Ryszard Kapuściński’s cycle of lapidaria — a continuation of his personal notebook of thoughts, observations and aphorisms. As in the first part, the author gathers here the fragments that arise on the margins of his great reportages: notes from his travels, reflections on his reading, snatches of conversations and scenes.

The volume took shape in the first half of the 1990s, during the turbulent changes that followed the fall of communism, and bears the marks of that era. Kapuściński ponders questions of life and death, beauty and ugliness, love and solitude, but also of politics and morality in a new, unsettled world. He observes with attention the growing power of the media, the mechanisms of politics, and the human condition at the end of the 20th century.

It is a book for slow reading and meditation — a collection of thoughts one returns to again and again, discovering new meanings each time. The second part of Lapidarium confirms that this genre became for Kapuściński a separate, fully personal way of writing about the world, running parallel to classic reportage.

Themes

• Life and death
• Beauty and ugliness
• Politics and morality
• Love and solitude

Character

A collection for re-reading and meditation.

See Also

• Lapidarium II — Polish editions and ISBN numbers.