https://kapuscinski.info/en/tags/craft/Recent content in Craft on kapuscinski.infoHugoen-USSun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://kapuscinski.info/en/biography/how-many-languages-did-kapuscinski-know/Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://kapuscinski.info/en/biography/how-many-languages-did-kapuscinski-know/<p>For decades Ryszard Kapuściński worked in places where no one spoke Polish. Foreign languages were not an add-on to his craft — they were a condition of the work itself. Without them there would have been no <a href="https://kapuscinski.info/en/books/the-emperor/">The Emperor</a>, no <a href="https://kapuscinski.info/en/books/imperium/">Imperium</a>, no <a href="https://kapuscinski.info/en/books/the-shadow-of-the-sun/">The Shadow of the Sun</a>.</p> <p>In short: Kapuściński was <strong>fluent in four languages</strong> — Polish, Russian, English and Spanish — and knew the basics of Swahili along with a working sense of several others. Below we explore how each of these languages was tied to a specific stage of his life and to specific books.</p>