Lapidarium

About the Book

Lapidarium is the first volume of a series unique in Ryszard Kapuściński’s work — a personal “notebook” in which the reporter gathers everything that did not fit into his great books. The title alludes to a collection of stones: each thought is like a separate, polished pebble, and together they form a mosaic.

The book is made up of aphorisms, short observations, overheard conversations, quotations from his reading, and reflections on history, politics and the human condition. Kapuściński notes scenes from his travels and from everyday life, jotting down thoughts on the passage of time, on human nature, and on the traps of the contemporary world and its media. Beneath the apparent lightness of the aphorism lies the mature wisdom of an observer who has crossed the world and learned to look more closely than others.

It is prose of the fragment — a book that can be read from any point, returned to, and rediscovered anew each time. Lapidarium opens a series that accompanied the author until his death and became his private, intellectual diary of the age — a counterweight to the great reportages, a space for free thought, digression and doubt.

Themes

• The passage of time
• Human nature and behaviour
• Observations about the world
• Wisdom and humour

Format

Aphorisms and short fragments to be read independently.

See Also

• Lapidarium — Polish editions and ISBN numbers.