Fact, Fiction and Kapuscinski
Robert Mackey in The New York Times' Lede blog on the controversy around Artur Domoslawski's biography of Kapuscinski.
- Author
- Robert Mackey
- Published in
- The New York Times (The Lede Blog)
- Date
- 2010-03-08
Author: Robert Mackey
Source: The New York Times — The Lede Blog, March 8, 2010
Link: https://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/fact-fiction-and-kapuscinski/
Editorial summary by kapuscinski.info. The text below is a summary based on the original article. The full article is available at the NYT (a subscription may be required).
An article published on The Lede, the New York Times blog devoted to media analysis and running events, immediately after the Polish publication of Artur Domoslawski’s Kapuscinski Non-Fiction in March 2010.
Mackey reports the eruption of the Polish argument for an English-speaking audience: Domoslawski — for years a close colleague of Kapuscinski’s at Gazeta Wyborcza — had published a biography revealing that many key scenes in the reportage were invented or heavily reworked. The writer’s widow, Alicja Kapuscinska, went to court to try to block publication.
Mackey quotes both the Polish critics defending Kapuscinski (Ascherson, the circle around Gazeta Wyborcza) and those who judged the disclosures necessary, referring back to Shafer’s earlier piece in Slate. The article documents how the Kapuscinski case became a test for the whole genre of literary journalism in an age of online fact-checking.
The piece contributed to Verso Books commissioning and publishing the English edition of Domoslawski’s biography in 2012.
source: kapuscinski.info