Interviews with Ryszard Kapuściński on kapuscinski.info

An Interview by Bill Buford

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Bill Buford source: Granta magazine date: 1987-01-01 ——————————————————————–

Bill Buford: Your first book to be published in English was The Emperor, and that appeared only four years ago. But you had been writing for nearly thirty years before your two translators, an American and a Pole, took it upon themselves to translate your book and submit it to an American publisher. What do you feel we should know about those years before the writing of The Emperor?

Writing About Suffering

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

An Interview with Ryszard Kapuscinski: Writing About Suffering

Polish-born journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski worked as an African correspondent for various Polish periodicals and press agencies from 1958 to 1980. In his book Imperium (Granta Books, 1994), he turns a journalist’s eye onto the Russian state, and the effects of authoritarianism on everyday Russian life. Kapuscinski delivered his November, 1997 Copernicus lecture: “The Russian Puzzle: Why I Wrote Imperium” at the Center for Russian and East European Studies. During his visit, he spoke with David Cohen (International Institute); John Woodford (Executive Editor of Michigan Today); and Thomas Wolfe (Communications). The following is an excerpted transcript of their conversation.

Journalism in Open and Closed Societies

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

source: Michigan Today, Spring 1998 archive source: info-poland.buffalo.edu

Spring 1998 Michigan Today—A Polish Perspective

. . . Spring 1998

HIS NATION’S SUFFERING HAS HONED A JOURNALIST’S

INSIGHTS INTO STRUGGLES FOR FREEDOM

Ryszard Kapuscinski grew up maneuvering under the occupation of both the Hitlerian and Stalinist variants of despotism, an experience that helped the Polish journalist win a reputation as the world’s most insightful, poetic and dogged chronicler of political upheaval. Born in Pinsk, Poland, a city now in Belarus, in 1932, the year when Hitler came to power and Stalin launched his most brutal purges, Kapuscinski (pronounced kapus-CHINTZ-kee) has spent 40 years of his life–including a decade living in Africa–covering struggles against dictatorships and colonial regimes. One reason for his unusually long exposure to discord was that the Polish Press Agency often lacked funds to extricate him from dangerous crises.