Author: Henryk Chłystowski. Source: www.radio.com.pl.

Henryk Chłystowski, Editor-in-Chief of Czytelnik Publishers:

The Lapidaria are already fairly well known on our market. This is the second strand of Ryszard Kapuściński’s writing. The first comprised his most important books: The Emperor, Shah of Shahs, Imperium, and The Shadow of the Sun. Those books form larger wholes, whereas the Lapidaria — as the name itself suggests — are fragments, crumbs, things that happen along the way. But they are no less important than the main strand, because in the Lapidaria, in a somewhat less demanding form — in the form of aphorisms or extended sketches that never exceed two pages — Kapuściński addresses very essential, very important matters.

The Lapidaria find readers because many people recognise themselves in them. This is reading somewhat easier than Kapuściński’s books, yet on the other hand it addresses very significant issues. However, if we compare Lapidarium I with Lapidarium V we notice that certain emphases have shifted. I think that the most important thing for Kapuściński now is the question of globalisation, of what is happening in the world at this moment. And the world is drawing ever closer in terms of communications, in the sense of various media and the development of the Internet and access to information. If someone wished to trace successive volumes of Kapuściński’s Lapidaria, he could probably detect just such global tendencies.

These are things very important to the author, but I would also say that they appear on the occasion of writing those most important books. The author has either judged that they will not find a place in a book or has judged that it is worth addressing them and showing them differently. In Lapidarium V the matter of roots, of origins, recurs constantly. I still cherish the hope that one day Ryszard Kapuściński will write a book about his childhood, about his origins, about Pinsk in Polesie. I know that he is gathering material about Pinsk. For many years he has been gathering it and time is always lacking to take up that book. In any case, origins are a common element running through successive Lapidaria — origins and, paradoxically, an openness to the world drawn from a very small locality in Polesie.

source: kapuscinski.info