Ryszard Kapuściński and Hanna Krall — two ways of writing reportage

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ryszard Kapuściński and Hanna Krall are among the most important names in Polish reportage, yet they represent two different ways of thinking about literary non-fiction. Both write about history, violence, memory and human experience at its limits. Both use literary form without giving up their grounding in reality. What differs is the scope of their vision, the rhythm of the narrative and the way the reporter is present. Kapuściński more often looks at great processes: decolonisation, revolutions, dictatorships, the fall of empires. Krall concentrates on an individual life, especially on the experience of the Holocaust, on memory and on survivors. In Kapuściński the individual leads to the history of the world. In Krall the history of the world is inscribed in a single life.

Literary Non-Fiction on kapuscinski.info

Ryszard Kapuściński and Hanna Krall — two ways of writing reportage