Etiopia on kapuscinski.info

A Treatise on Power, or "The Emperor" by Ryszard Kapuściński

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Artur Domosławski

From Tuesday in the news-stands: “The Emperor” by Ryszard Kapuściński — the next book in our twentieth-century collection. Not only did it launch the international career of the greatest Polish reporter; it also elevated reportage to the status of high literature. The very highest.

To write a note about Kapuściński’s “The Emperor” is like writing about Homer’s “Iliad”.

The American prose writer John Updike considered “The Emperor” a “magical reflection that often transforms itself into poetry and aphorism”. The review by that very writer, published in the American “New Yorker”, launched the international career of “The Emperor”. The year was 1981.

The Emperor — A Pamphlet on Totalitarianism. Review of the Book "The Emperor"

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Maciej Skórczewski. Date of publication: 2000-02-01

Ethiopia, mid-1970s. Night, silence, tension and fear palpable in the air. Somewhere in the remotest corner of Addis Ababa, in the quietest house, in deep conspiracy, an interview begins — or rather a long monologue of witnesses. People who, on account of what they did in the past, are condemned to constant hiding. Outside, a revolution is progressing. The country is gripped by civil war; a struggle for power is being waged. A decisive advantage is being gained by the mutinous army, the army that until recently served its ruler faithfully — the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I. It is the year 1975; the storm calms down, a second war begins — a war in which victors hunt the vanquished, a war in which death is delivered not by technology but by an “ordinary” denunciation by a neighbour. In such conspiratorial conditions we meet people who until recently served the highest authority in Ethiopia — Emperor Haile Selassie I. And so begins another and one of the finest books by Ryszard Kapuściński, entitled “The Emperor”. A book that has been universally recognised as a pamphlet on totalitarianism.

The Lawyer Demanded Notarised Documents from Ethiopia

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: William R. Brand. Source: http://alfaomega.webnode.com/products/ryszard-kapu/ Date of publication: 2010-03-09

We met Ryszard Kapuściński in Kraków, on a muggy day, in late spring 1981. In the pocket of his beige jacket he had a pack of “Radomskie” cigarettes. He said to me: “With that beard you look like a mujahideen.”

He was not an author frequently published outside Poland, and Kasia and I had never before translated a whole book. After nine months of trying, we still had no publisher and had translated only one third of “The Emperor”. We would probably have given up, if not for one thing he said to us that day.