Jacek-Zakowski on kapuscinski.info

Polish Writer Ryszard Kapuscinski Dies

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

WARSAW, Poland (AP) – Ryszard Kapuscinski, a Polish writer and journalist who gained international acclaim for his books chronicling wars, coups and revolutions in Africa, the Middle East and other parts of the world, died following heart surgery, his publisher said. He was 74.

Kapuscinski died Tuesday at Warsaw’s Banacha hospital, said Marek Zakowski, president of the Czytelnik publishing house, which published several of Kapuscinski’s books and is editing a new one, ‘‘Lappidarium 6.’’ Zakowski declined to give any more details about the surgery or the precise cause of death.

Prominent Polish writer and journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski dies at 74

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

WARSAW, Poland: Ryszard Kapuscinski, a Polish writer and journalist who gained international acclaim for his books chronicling wars, coups and revolutions in Africa, the Middle East and other parts of the world, has died. He was 74.

Kapuscinski died Tuesday at Warsaw’s Banacha hospital of a heart attack following an operation, Czeslaw Apiecionek, one of Kapuscinski’s literary agents, told The Associated Press. He would give no other details. But a friend of Kapuscinski, Miroslaw Ikonowicz, was quoted by the news agency PAP as saying Kapuscinski died of a heart attack after undergoing an operation on a tumor on Friday.

Ryszard Kapuscinski Master of literary reportage

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Ryszard Kapuscinski, journalist: born Pinsk, Poland 4 March 1932; married 1952 Alicja Mielczarek (one daughter); died Warsaw 23 January 2007.

The Polish reporter Ryszard Kapuscinski was the 20th century’s most telling spokesman for the millions of ordinary people who are trapped in the vagaries of authoritarian regimes.

He could have done it anywhere, but fate and the limited budgets of his Polish employers took him, chiefly, to Africa. There, he told the story of Haile Selassie through the anecdotes of a man at the palace gates whose job was to wipe visitors’ shoes after meetings with the Ethiopian emperor and his incontinent dog, Lulu. In Tanzania, political upheaval was brought into perspective by a report from a village where all that mattered to the peasants was the long wait for rain.