Wspomnienia on kapuscinski.info

A Personal Tribute A unique worldview for the common man

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

Author:Michael Werbowski,

Source:Ohmy News

A few days ago, a citizen reporter wrote about the reporter and great satirist Art Buchwald who died recently. I thought it appropriate to follow up with a personal tribute to Ryszard Kapuscinski, a worldly gentleman and great reporter who died Tuesday of a heart attack. He was a man whose writings gave me a passion for travel, world affairs and the thrill of “being there” where events happen.

I Had to Experience Everything for Myself

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

Remembering Ryszard Kapuscinski, who left journalism to carve out a special place in the literary landscape.

In 1966 at the height of the Nigerian civil war, an unassuming-looking Polish journalist by the name of Ryszard Kapuscinski set out on a seemingly insane journey. He left the relative safety of Lagos and drove straight into the region of the fiercest fighting, on a road where any traveler could be summarily executed by trigger-happy, machete-wielding guards at any number of improvised roadblocks set up by roaming gangs of both warring parties. “I was driving along a road where they say no white man can come back alive,” Kapuscinski wrote later in his book “The Soccer War.” “I was driving to see if a white man could, because I had to experience everything for myself.”

It Was a Small Dog, a Japanese Breed

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

In those unbelievable times ordinary Poles got up at dawn to stand in line in front of a bookstore, to hunt down their dream book. They followed world politics avidly, and knew more about the Third World than the British and French combined.

You could say that in communist Poland, people hunted for books because everything was in short supply, while rooting for Patrice Lumumba, concern for the fate of Allende or following the stormy life of Che Guevara was a substitute for the complete lack of political attractions in a country ruled by communists.

Kapuscinski Reportage Remembered

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

Ryszard Kapuscinski’s chief metier was Africa and Latin America in the throes of violent revolution. As a roving foreign correspondent for Poland’s state press agency for more than two decades, he likely witnessed more tumult than any of his peers. But Kapuscinski, who died Tuesday at age 74, was much more than a man who took great risks to get the best insights - heading into the bush when colleagues were fleeing on the last planes out.

Kapuscinski: A disptach from the late master of reportage

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

No reporter ever brought the world’s trouble spots to life with the vividness of the great Ryszard Kapuscinski. To mark his death this week, Ian Jack recalls his late friend’s ‘passionate curiosity’, and we publish the opening chapter of one of the Polish writer’s most acclaimed works, ‘The Soccer War’

A few years ago a party to celebrate the publication of Ryszard Kapuscinski’s book on Africa was held, properly enough, in the Polish Club in South Kensington. A few of us then walked to dinner with him at a restaurant in Kensington High Street; no more than a luxurious toddle, but someone complained that a taxi would have been a better idea, that it was really quite far. Obviously, said Kapuscinski of the complainant, he never went on a route march with the Polish army in Stalinist times.

Master Reporter Signs Off

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

Ryszard Kapuściński, one of the best known Polish journalists and writers, died in Warsaw after a long illness Jan. 23. He was active until the last days of his life, meeting his readers and planning work on new books. He would have been 75 on March 4.

Kapuściński made his first trip as a reporter to China in 1956, sent by the Warsaw-based newspaper Sztandar Młodych. Later, he made trips to Africa, South America and Asia, which resulted in a number of highly regarded works. His books are read across the world and Kapuściński is considered one of the most important literary witnesses of his times.

Obituaries: Ryszard Kapuscinski, a chronicler of conflict

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

ANKARA: Ryszard Kapuscinski, a globe-trotting journalist from Poland whose writing, often tinged with magical realism, brought him critical acclaim and a wide international readership, died Tuesday in Warsaw. He was 74.

His death, in a hospital, was reported by PAP, the Polish news agency for which he had worked. No cause was given, but he was known to have had cancer. Kapuscinski spent four decades observing and writing about conflict throughout the developing world.

On Kapuscinski gonzo orientalism

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

“The European mind is willing to acknowledge its limitations, accept its limitations. It is a sceptical mind. The spirit of criticism does not exist in other cultures. They are proud, believing that what they have is perfect.” – Ryszard Kapuscinski

“The greatest mind to bear upon Africa since Conrad.” – The Evening Standard on Ryszard Kapuscinski

I have tried, just once in my life, to be an Angry Black Man. I planned a picket in New York City against a man I love to hate – Ryszard Kapuscinski. He was going to speak at a conference organised by American PEN. Nobody seemed to want to join me. There were better things to do in New York, like drinking – I do not lie – a hibiscus juice and chilli margarita. So I got drunk.

Polish chronicler of Third World Kapuscinski dies

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

WARSAW(Reuters) - Polish journalist and author Ryszard Kapuscinski, whose chronicles of the world’s trouble spots won him an international reputation, died on Tuesday, the PAP news agency said. He was 74.

Best-known among his 19 books was “The Emperor”, an account of the downfall of Ethiopia’s Haile Selassie told from inside the castle walls. He witnessed 27 coups and revolutions, befriended the likes of Che Guevara, and was sentenced to death four times, according to his American publisher, Alfred A. Knopf.

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.

Polish writer who turned reportage into literature

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

Ryszard Kapuscinski, the celebrated Polish journalist who earned a worldwide reputation for his reports from Africa, Asia and Latin America, has died at the age of 74.

Polish and non-Polish journalists alike acknowledged that nobody captured the mood of the developing world, especially of post-colonial Africa, better than Kapuscinski, who died in Warsaw on Tuesday after a long illness.

Whether pricking the pretensions of the court of Ethiopia’s emperor Haile Selassie, or turning the spectacle of the decaying Angolan city of Luanda into a metaphor for the continent, he brought a new dimension to journalism, combining shrewd observation with sympathetic insights. Together with fine writing, albeit sometimes idiosyncratic, these qualities “raised his reportage to the status of literature”, as long-time admirer Michael Ignatieff put it. He was nominated many times for the Nobel literature prize, but the call from Stockholm never came.

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.

Ryszard Kapuscinski, Polish Writer of Shimmering Allegories and News, Dies at 74

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

Ryszard Kapuscinski, a globe-trotting journalist from Poland whose writing, often tinged with magical realism, brought him critical acclaim and a wide international readership, died yesterday in Warsaw. He was 74. His death, at a hospital, was reported by PAP, the Polish news agency for which he had worked. No cause was given, but he was known to have had cancer.

Mr. Kapuscinski (pronounced ka-poos-CHIN-ski) spent some four decades observing and writing about conflict throughout the developing world. He witnessed 27 coups and revolutions. He spent his working days gathering information for the terse dispatches he sent to PAP, often from places like Ougadougou or Zanzibar. At night, he worked on longer, descriptive essays with phantasmagoric touches that went far beyond the details of the day’s events, using allegory and metaphors to convey what was happening.

Ryszard Kapuscinski: A Worlds Reporter

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

“Why am I a writer? Why have I risked my life so many times, come so close to dying? Is it to report the weirdness? To earn my salary? Mine is not a vocation, it’s a mission. I wouldn’t subject myself to these dangers if I didn’t feel that there was something overwhelmingly important–about history, about ourselves–that I felt compelled to get across. This is more than journalism.”

--Ryszard Kapuscinski interview by Bill Bufford (“Granta Magazine”).

The Illuminated Letters Of a Polish Journalist

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

Maybe there’s something about those brutal winters on the high northern plains of Eastern Europe, stuck defenseless between Berlin and Moscow, the peasant huts and concrete apartments smelling of dank clothes, lost hope and boiled cabbage.

Maybe there’s something that, every so often, kicks a young writer in the gut, and produces great wanderlust or literary genius or, in the case of Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski and his literary predecessor Joseph Conrad, both.

Third World chronicler Kapuscinski dies

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

WARSAW, Poland(Reuters) – Polish journalist and author Ryszard Kapuscinski, whose chronicles of the world’s trouble spots won him an international reputation, died on Tuesday, the PAP news agency said. He was 74.

From 1959 to 1981, Kapuscinski covered the globe’s poorest and most dangerous places as a correspondent for PAP. He also wrote books about Africa’s emergence from colonialism – and its descent into turmoil and war. Best-known among his 19 books was “The Emperor”, an account of the downfall of Ethiopia’s Haile Selassie told from inside the castle walls.

War Correspondent, Author Ryszard Kapuscinski

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

Ryszard Kapuscinski, 74, a danger-courting Polish journalist and widely translated author who covered 27 revolutions and was among the most celebrated war correspondents of his generation, died Jan. 23 at Banacha Hospital in Warsaw after a heart attack. He also had cancer.

With prose that was punchy and lyrical, and in which he was often a central figure amid the action, he became a foremost chronicler of the developing world in his books. Likened to a modern-day nomad, he carried only a camera, a clean shirt and money. “The less you have the better for you,” he said, “because to have is to be killed.”

Obituary: Ryszard Kapuściński

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Victoria Brittain
Source: The Guardian, January 25, 2007
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jan/25/guardianobituaries.mainsection

Editorial summary by kapuscinski.info. The text below is a summary based on the original article. The full article is available free of charge at The Guardian.

An obituary by Victoria Brittain — for many years The Guardian’s correspondent in Africa and Asia, and the author of books on Angola and Equatorial Guinea. Brittain was writing about Africa in much the same years as Kapuscinski, which gives her judgement unusual weight: she is not reviewing him from outside, but from the position of a witness to the same events.

Ryszard Kapuscinski, Polish Writer of Shimmering Allegories and News, Dies at 74

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Michael T. Kaufman
Source: The New York Times, January 24, 2007
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/books/24kap.html

Editorial summary by kapuscinski.info. The text below is a summary based on the original article. The full article is available at The New York Times (a subscription may be required).

The obituary of Ryszard Kapuscinski published by The New York Times on the day of the writer’s death, 23 January 2007. Michael T. Kaufman — himself a long-serving NYT foreign correspondent who knew Kapuscinski personally — draws a full portrait for an English-speaking readership.