Lapidarium V on kapuscinski.info

Lapidarium V. Polish Editions and ISBN.

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Below is a working list of Polish editions of “Lapidarium V” by Ryszard Kapuściński. ISBN numbers are included only where they could be confirmed.

Polish Editions

First Edition Year of publication: 2002 Publisher: Czytelnik Print run: 20,000 copies Number of pages: 128 ISBN: 83-07-02905-8

"Apparent Pessimism" — Review of "Lapidarium V"

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Mariusz Czubaj. Source: Polityka, No. 46/2002. Date of publication: 2002.

It is impossible to say or write anything about the contemporary world that would be lasting, solid, and certain — says Ryszard Kapuściński in Lapidarium V, and perhaps this explains the conciseness and often aphoristic form of the collected notes.

The successive Lapidaria and Kapuściński’s reportage books complement each other. Where in his now-classic books — The Emperor or The Soccer War — the reporter showed one flashpoint on the political-social map and brought it closer from various angles, the notes in the Lapidaria are dispersed and can concern almost anything: impressions from a given lecture, reading, childhood memories from Polesie, scenes observed equally well in a Warsaw hospital and an exclusive restaurant in Mexico.

"From Near and Far" — Review of "Lapidarium V"

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Piotr Śliwiński. Source: Nowe Książki, No. 2/2003. Date of publication: February 2003.

Anyone who has read an earlier volume of Ryszard Kapuściński’s Lapidaria will recognise familiar contents and messages in the newest, already fifth part of the cycle. Poverty and wealth, unequally and unjustly distributed in the contemporary world; Africa, which does not deserve to be condemned in the globalist apportionment of roles to the perpetual playing of hell; processes of unifying patterns of life and thought; acts of revolt against what remains today incomprehensible and alien; terrorism (seen now through the prism of 11 September) and ineradicable evil. Kapuściński says: the world is not perfect and is not approaching perfection — as globalist propaganda of success would have it; nor is it interesting by virtue of its uncontested diversity — as popular postmodern humanist scholarship maintains. He says: the world is tragic, full of problems that we not only cannot solve but cannot even understand. We live in a circle of illusions and appearances, in the wheel of images bearing no relation to reality, though supposedly resembling it, in the din of words incapable of explaining or connecting anything. We are, as it were, stupefied. Whoever, therefore, has seen with his own eyes a hunger that cannot be deceived by anything, to whom it has happened to read the despair written on human faces, who has directly touched ultimate misery, understands what the difference is between knowledge delivered by television and real knowledge. The first sooner or later leads to indifference; the second imposes on a person the obligation to bear witness. It tells the writer to write, to remind, to repeat — until boredom sets in.

Excerpts from "Lapidarium V"

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I have always turned towards other horizons, always tried to know what is happening elsewhere. — Emil Cioran

“A 58-year-old homeless resident of Leszno who stole 8,000 marks from an acquaintance and then gave part of the money to other homeless people is to stand trial. The regional prosecutor’s office has referred the indictment to court. The homeless ‘Robin Hood’ gave 2,000 marks to his fellow residents at a homeless shelter in Leszno; with the remaining money he set out on a journey around Poland. For a fortnight he travelled. At railway stations in Poznań, Wrocław, and Kalisz he bought food for homeless people and gave away the stolen money. He turned himself in to the police after he learned from the press that the acquaintance he had robbed had died of a heart attack.” (Gazeta Wyborcza, 6 April 2000.)

Lapidarium V

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

First Edition. Year of publication: 2002. Print run: 20,000 copies.

Preface

A lapidarium is a place — a square in a city, a courtyard in a castle, a patio in a museum — where found stones are deposited: the remnants of sculptures and fragments of buildings — here a shard of a torso or an arm, there a piece of a cornice or a column; in short, things that are parts of a whole that does not exist (any longer, yet, or ever), and with which no one knows what to do.

Lapidarium V — Review (Anna Pytlowany)

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Anna Pytlowany. Source: www.dziennik.com. Date of publication: 2002.

Since 11 September every meeting about literature, music, or painting inevitably comes down to politics — Ryszard Kapuściński says with irritation, hearing a question about the effects of globalisation.

— What an astonishing dominance! Recently, over four months, I was in the USA, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. Every time, after a few minutes, the problem of the contemporary world and politics appeared. These questions turn everyone into a crowd that sits quietly and listens: will there be a war or not? Can we really not talk about anything else?

Lapidarium V — Review (Piotr Huniewicz)

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Piotr Huniewicz. Source: www.informer.bajo.pl. Date of publication: 2002.

The long-awaited fifth volume of Ryszard Kapuściński’s notes was a certain bestseller of November. No wonder — it is the first book since Heban, published in 1999, and the original form Kapuściński created places his achievement among the finest accomplishments of Polish writing in recent decades.

Lapidarium I was first published by Czytelnik in 1990. Since then successive parts of the cycle have gained a constantly growing crowd of admirers and enthusiasts. One might have thought that penetrating and critical observation of the world, cautious diagnoses that are usually pessimistic, would make Lapidarium a book for a narrow group of readers. Most of the notes in this volume concentrate on the problems of globalisation, multiculturalism, and various aspects of contemporary development and culture, including ethical and moral problems. Yet Kapuściński’s voice is not the voice of an enlightened European or a self-assured American. It is telling that Kapuściński devoted only a fragment to the attack on America of 11 September. His is the voice of a man who made the peripheries of the world his intellectual centre, and from that perspective looks at the great and small matters of this world. Kapuściński critically evaluates claims about the beneficial or at least positive influence of globalisation. The problem is above all the growing estrangement of people: despite advances in communications and connectivity, our mutual acquaintance — contrary to widespread myths — is still superficial, and most often none at all. (…) we do not live in a global village, but rather in a global metropolis, a global station or railway terminus, through which surges a “lonely crowd” (…) of neurotic people who do not want to know or come close to one another. Globalisation thus becomes a problem not only economic but also spiritual, accompanied by various ethical dilemmas.

Lapidarium V — Review (Tygodnik Powszechny)

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Tygodnik Powszechny. Source: Tygodnik Powszechny, No. 47 (2785). Date of publication: 24 November 2002.

Ryszard Kapuściński: I have a meeting with readers in Poznań. I speak about the contemporary world. After the meeting two people come up to me. It was interesting, they say, but in our opinion too pessimistic. And it does not help — the author of Heban writes — to explain that what I was saying was, compared with the reality of our planet, supremely optimistic, that I was looking for light colours and warm tones… People do not want truth; they seek consolation, they need encouragement. Also because any collision with the hard realities of the world immediately creates an ethical problem — it demands an active attitude, calls for a response, and the sense of helplessness that arises in such a situation is humiliating. Better, then, not to know.

Press Reviews of "Lapidarium V"

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

• 2002 Polityka no. 46, 16 Nov. Apparent Pessimism. Review by Mariusz Czubajs.

• 2002 Tygodnik Powszechny no. 47. “Lapidarium” Part Five. Review.

• 2003 Kwartalnik Artystyczny no. 1, pp. 140–43. Lapidarium V. Review by Grzegorz Kalinowski.

• 2003 Nowe Książki no. 2, p. 30. From Near and Far. Review by Piotr Śliwiński.

• 2003 Twórczość no. 7/8, pp. 182–85. Review by Zbigniew Bauer.

• 2003 Tygodnik Powszechny no. 7/8, pp. 218–21. Review by Mieczysław Orski.

Ryszard Kapuściński's Speech at the Launch of Lapidarium V

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Ryszard Kapuściński. Source: Czytelnik Publishers, 7 November 2002, 17:30. Date of publication: 7 November 2002.

How Is a Lapidarium Written?

Speech by Ryszard Kapuściński at the launch of Lapidarium V Czytelnik Publishers, 7 November 2002, 17:30

I began writing the Lapidaria in the following circumstances. When martial law was declared in December 1981, I was working at the weekly Kultura. The weekly was closed, and all of us who worked there — because we belonged to Solidarity — were dismissed, cast out of the profession. As a result I had no occupation, and I asked myself: what is there to write about here, what is there to do? I turned first to my notes from earlier journeys, which is why the first volume of Lapidarium begins with sequences, fragments from my stays in Latin America. But I then moved away from that — from the idea that it should consist purely of reportorial notes — and began writing observations prompted by our Polish reality in those periods, and also everything that related to art, literature, sociology, and the other social sciences.

The Editor-in-Chief of Czytelnik Publishers on "Lapidarium V"

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

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.

TV Panorama Report on the Launch of Lapidarium V

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

TV Panorama Report (7 November 2002, 22:00)

Crowds of avid readers came this evening to one of Warsaw’s most famous cafés, at the Czytelnik publishing house, for the launch of Ryszard Kapuściński’s latest book — Lapidarium V. As the author says: “From the torrent of words and information it is worth extracting and recording valuable thoughts.” That is why, for twelve years, successive volumes of the Lapidaria have been coming into being.