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"A Witness's Account" — Review of "Christ with a Rifle on His Shoulder"

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Krzysztof Wojna. Source: Nowe Książki, 1975. Date of publication: 13 July 1975.

The struggle for national and social liberation is one of the integral elements of contemporary life. It has occupied a particularly large place in the political life of the world since the Second World War. Reading the daily press we accept as normal that in various corners of Africa, Asia, or Latin America people are being killed, villages burned, armies carrying out executions. We are somewhat numbed to this kind of information. Too often and in too great quantity do such dispatches reach us in the course of a day — with details not all that different from one another, with almost identical mechanisms of events.

"What World Do We Live In" — Review of "Christ with a Rifle on His Shoulder"

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Krzysztof Mętrak. Source: Twórczość, 1976, no. 6.

The concept of a “world civilisation,” which publicists invoke from time to time, is highly abstract and increasingly meaningless in the mouth of a European (or representative of Western culture). The processes taking place in the so-called Third World — encompassing a third of humanity, three vast continents, dozens of states, hundreds of languages — cannot be understood when European-centrist measures and categories are applied to them. The offer put forward by Western civilisation, which wished to introduce its models of life into the Third World — from monogamous marriage to universal suffrage, from department stores to savings banks — has been rejected. The leaders of that world do not wish to replicate anyone else’s civilisational models, invoking ever more frequently “authenticity,” “their own specific character,” “a sense of their own worth,” and “the uniqueness of their experience.” Meanwhile Europeans go blind, unwilling to surrender their self-assurance and abandon the “centre of the world,” and in translating that life into their own idiom they often commit cardinal errors.

Christ with a Rifle on His Shoulder. Polish Editions and ISBN.

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Below is a working list of Polish editions of Ryszard Kapuściński’s “Christ with a Rifle on His Shoulder”. ISBN numbers are included only where they could be reasonably confirmed in bibliographic and publishing sources.

Polish Editions

First Edition Year of publication: 1975 Publisher: Czytelnik Print run: 15,000 copies Cover price: 5 zł Series: “Fronty” ISBN: no confirmed number

Second Edition Year of publication: 1976 Publisher: Czytelnik Print run: 20,000 copies ISBN: no confirmed number

Excerpts from "Christ with a Rifle on His Shoulder"

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The University of San Andrés, La Paz

The rector received me in his office on the eleventh floor of the tower block that houses the University of San Andrés. The tower block stands on the edge of the old centre of La Paz and looks much as many buildings looked after the Warsaw Uprising had ended. Walls riddled with bullet holes, here and there a wall torn open by an artillery shell. Many windows have no glass, and since we are at an altitude of nearly four thousand metres, sharp cold winds sweep through the corridors.

Press Reviews of "Christ with a Rifle on His Shoulder"

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Survey of press reviews:

• 1974 Polityka no. 27, p. 7–8. Christ with a Rifle… Review by W. Giełżyński.

• 1975 Kontynenty no. 7, p. 39, 53. Beautiful Dying. Review by J. Chociłowski.

• 1975 Kontrasty no. 7, p. 53. Review by Ryszard Ciemiński.

• 1975 Miesięcznik Literacki no. 9, p. 131–32. Literature Without Fiction. Review by Anna Bukowska.

• 1975 Radar no. 11, p. 14–15. Understanding the World. Review by Leszek Bugajski.