Polish journalist, photographer, poet and author (1932?2007)
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
(
Polish:
[?r??art
kapu??t??ij?sk?i]
ⓘ
; 4 March 1932 ? 23 January 2007) was a Polish journalist, photographer, poet and author. He received many awards and was considered a candidate for the
Nobel Prize in Literature
. Kapu?ci?ski's personal journals in book form attracted both controversy and admiration for blurring the conventions of
reportage
with the
allegory
and
magical realism
of literature.
[1]
He was the
Communist
-era
Polish Press Agency
's only correspondent in Africa during
decolonization
, and also worked in South America and Asia. Between 1956 and 1981 he reported on 27 revolutions and coups, until he was fired because of his support for the pro-democracy
Solidarity movement
in his native country. He was celebrated by other practitioners of the genre. The acclaimed Italian reportage-writer
Tiziano Terzani
, Colombian writer
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
, and Chilean writer
Luis Sepulveda
accorded him the title "Maestro".
[2]
[3]
[4]
Notable works include
Jeszcze dzie? ?ycia
(1976;
Another Day of Life
), about
Angola
;
Cesarz
(1978;
The Emperor
, 1983), about the downfall of Ethiopian ruler
Haile Selassie
, also considered to be a satire of Communist Poland;
Wojna futbolowa
(1978;
The Soccer War
, 1991), an account of the 1969 conflict between Honduras and El Salvador, and other stories from the life of the reporter in Africa and Latin America;
Szachinszach
(1982;
Shah of Shahs
, 2006) about the downfall of the last
Shah of Persia
;
Imperium
(1993) an account of his travels through the collapsing Soviet Union;
Heban
(1998), later published in English as
The Shadow of the Sun
(2001), the story of his years in Africa; and
Podro?e z Herodotem
(2004;
Travels with Herodotus
), in which he ponders over relevance of
The Histories
by
Herodotus
to a modern reporter's job.
Biography
[
edit
]
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski was born in
Pinsk
(now in
Belarus
),
Polesie Voivodeship
, in the
Kresy Wschodnie
or eastern borderlands of the
Second Polish Republic
in 1932, the son of Maria Bobka (b. 1910) and Jozef Kapu?ci?ski (b. 1903), primary school teachers. His sister Barbara was born the following year. They were born into poverty: he would later say that he felt at home in Africa as "food was scarce there too and everyone was also barefoot."
[5]
In September 1938 Ryszard started attending Primary School No 5 in Pinsk. He spent the summer of 1939 together with his mother and sister in
Pawłow
, a small village near
Rejowiec
in
Lublin Voivodeship
. When the
Second World War
began in September 1939 they came back to Pinsk after the city was captured by the
Red Army
and Ryszard returned to school there. In 1940 Maria, afraid of
deportation to the East
, together with Ryszard and Barbara left Pinsk and moved to
Sierakow
, near
Warsaw
. There they met Jozef. Later the family moved near
Otwock
. Ryszard continued education in primary school in Otwock (1944?45).
[6]
He described his early life in the book
Imperium
.
In 1945 the family settled in Warsaw where Ryszard began education in
Stanisław Staszic
Gymnasium
. He became an amateur boxer (
bantamweight
) and football player.
[7]
In 1948, Kapu?ci?ski joined the official Communist youth organisation?the
ZMP
?and served lower rank posts.
[8]
Kapu?ci?ski was the hero of the article published in the weekly periodical
Odrodzenie
reporting on a poetry conference organised at his school, in which the teenager's poems were compared with works of
Mayakovsky
and
Wierzy?ski
.
[9]
In June 1950 he graduated from Gymnasium and started working for the
Sztandar Młodych
(The Banner of Youth), a nationwide newspaper founded in 1950 as the organ of the ZMP. In October 1950 he began his studies at
Warsaw University
(Department of Polish Studies) and in 1951 he moved to the department of history after he suspended working for
Sztandar Młodych
till 1955. He participated in the
Youth Festival
in East Berlin staged in August 1951 in
East Germany
. This was his first foreign trip. From 1952 and till his death Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski was married to doctor Alicja Mielczarek (1933?2022
[10]
). Their daughter Zofia was born in 1953. During the period from 1953 to 1981?the year of the imposition of the
martial law in Poland
?Kapu?ci?ski was a member of the Polish United Workers' Party (the
PZPR
). His attitude to the PZPR changed early on, "the decisive moment having come in the year 1956" (presumably a reference to the events of
Pozna? June
and the process of
de-Stalinisation
brought about by the
Thaw of Gomułka
, and the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
).
[11]
[12]
In June 1955 he graduated from Warsaw University. After publishing, in September 1955, a critical article about the construction of
Nowa Huta
, a
Krakow
conurbation built on a site chosen as the "first socialist municipality in Poland",
[13]
which brought to light the inhuman working and living conditions of the labourers involved in the venture?a story which occasioned consternation before eventually winning favour with the Communist authorities unsure at first how to react to a fault-finding depiction of their pet project by one of their own?Kapu?ci?ski was awarded the
Golden Cross of Merit
at the age of 23.
In August 1956 he reported from
Kyiv
and in September he was sent to
India
, his first travel outside Europe. He returned via
Afghanistan
(where he was detained at the airport in
Kabul
) and Moscow. In August 1957 he went for half a year to China (via Tokyo and Hong Kong). He came back to Poland by the
Trans-Siberian Railway
. Beginning with that journey to India undertaken at the age of 24, he travelled across the developing world reporting on wars, coups and revolutions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He started learning English in India by reading, with the help of a dictionary, a copy of
Hemingway's
For Whom the Bell Tolls
.
[14]
He wrote about his first travels to Asia in the book
Travels with Herodotus
.
In 1958 he left
Sztandar Młodych
and started working for the
Polish Press Agency
. Shortly afterwards he also joined the weekly
Polityka
(where he worked till 1962). The result of his work for the weekly was the book
Busz po polsku
(The Polish Bush) published in 1962, a collection of his articles from the "Polish wilderness" that he went into to relate "the perspectives of forgotten, invisible, marginal people and so to record a living history of those seldom deemed worthy to enter the annals of official history" (in the words of
Diana Kuprel
, the literary scholar and translator of Kapu?ci?ski's works).
[15]
He was aggrieved at the indifference of the reading public towards the majority of his early books.
[16]
In the late 1950s he went for the first time to Africa (
Ghana
,
Republic of Dahomey
and
Niger
). After honing his skills on domestic stories he was later "'responsible' for fifty countries" for the Polish Press Agency in Africa.
[17]
[18]
(Although a correspondent of an official state press agency, he never in his life asked a single question at any press conference that he attended
[16]
). When he finally returned to Poland, he had lived through twenty-seven revolutions and coups, been jailed 40 times and survived four death sentences.
[19]
In the English-speaking world, Kapu?ci?ski is best known for his reporting from Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, when he witnessed first-hand the end of the European colonial empires on that continent.
In 1961 he reported from the
Republic of the Congo
. He described his escape to
Bujumbura
and subsequent arrest in the book
The Soccer War
. In the years 1962?65 he lived initially in
Dar es Salaam
and later in
Nairobi
from where he travelled to other countries in Africa. He came back to Poland for only a few weeks in 1965 but returned to Africa to live in
Lagos
and continue reporting. In April 1965 he travelled to
Senegal
and
Mauritania
which he later described in the book
The Shadow of the Sun
. At the end of 1966 he came back to Poland. In April 1967 he went to Central Asia and
Caucasus
.
[20]
In November the same year he started working as a foreign correspondent in South America, based in
Santiago
. Later he moved to Mexico (1969?72). In 1969 he witnessed war in
Honduras
which he described in the book
The Soccer War
. In 1969 he edited and translated from the Spanish
El diario del Che en Bolivia
, the final literary bequest of
Che Guevara
.
[21]
Kapu?ci?ski analyzed the situation in
Guatemala
after a German diplomat
Karl von Spreti
was kidnapped. He published his reportage in 1970 entitled
Dlaczego zgin?ł Karl von Spreti
(Why Karl von Spreti Died). He returned to Poland in 1972 and later worked for magazines
Kontynenty
and
Kultura
. In September 1975 he went to
Angola
after which he published the book
Another Day of Life
. In 1975 and 1977 he went to
Ethiopia
.
The Emperor
was written after his travels there.
[22]
In 1979 he visited his birthplace Pinsk for the first time since 1940. In 1979 he went to Iran to witness the
Iranian Revolution
. His book
Shah of Shahs
deals with this subject and the fall of
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
, the last
Shah
of
Iran
.
In 1980 he witnessed the
strikes
that took place in
Gda?sk
, Poland.
[23]
[24]
In 1988 two episodes of
Arena
were dedicated to him and his work.
[25]
[26]
He travelled in European and Asian parts of the
Soviet Union
(1989?1992) and witnessed the
dissolution of the Soviet Union
. After this experience he wrote
Imperium
. He was awarded
German Academic Exchange Service
scholarship in
Berlin
in 1994. In 1999 Kapu?ci?ski talked about his life in
VPRO
in a series of autobiographical interviews with prominent people from the worlds of science, culture and politics.
[27]
In a 2006 interview with
Reuters
, Kapu?ci?ski said that he wrote for "people everywhere still young enough to be curious about the world."
[5]
He was fluent in Polish, English, Russian, Spanish, French and
Portuguese
. He was visiting professor in
Bangalore
(1970s),
Bonn
,
Cape Town
, Caracas (1979),
Columbia University
(1983),
Harvard University
,
Irkutsk
, London,
Madrid
, Mexico (1979),
San Sebastian
,
Temple University
(1988) and
Vancouver
.
[28]
Kapu?ci?ski died on 23 January 2007, of a heart attack suffered in a Warsaw hospital where he was being treated for unrelated ailments.
[5]
Literary works
[
edit
]
From the early 1960s onwards, Kapu?ci?ski published books of increasing literary craftsmanship characterized by sophisticated narrative technique, psychological portraits of characters, a wealth of stylization and
metaphor
and unusual imagery that serves as means of interpreting the perceived world. Kapu?ci?ski's best-known book,
The Emperor
, concerns itself with the decline of
Haile Selassie
's anachronistic regime in
Ethiopia
. The book's story had a special meaning that was not lost on the people of Poland, especially as dissent against the PZPR was taking root.
The Emperor
was also the book that established Kapu?ci?ski's reputation in the West. When it appeared in English translation in 1983 it received an immediate critical success.
[29]
In 1987 the book was adapted by Michael Hastings and Jonathan Miller into a theatre play, produced by the Royal Court Theatre, London.
Kapu?ci?ski:
We know everything about the global problem of poverty. What we can't figure out is how to reduce it in practical terms. [The moment we try] there appear obstacles that cannot be surmounted, and interests one cannot go against.
?From an interview with Kapu?ci?ski published in
Press
magazine, 2006
[16]
Kapu?ci?ski was fascinated by the humanity he found in different worlds and people, as well as the books of these worlds and people: he approached foreign countries first through literature, spending months reading before each trip. He was skilled in listening to the diverse people he met, but he was also capable of "reading" the hidden sense of the scenes he encountered: the way the Europeans moved out of
Angola
, a discussion regarding
alimony
in the
Tanganyikan
parliament, the reconstruction of
frescoes
in the new Russia?he turned each of these vignettes into a metaphor of historical transformation.
This tendency to process private experiences into a greater social synthesis made Kapu?ci?ski an eminent thinker, and the volumes of the ongoing
Lapidarium
series are a record of the shaping of a reporter's observations into philosophical reflections on the world, its people and their suffering. He had great compassion for the poor, the victimised, and the debased.
Kapu?ci?ski himself called his work "literary reportage",
[30]
and
reportage
d'auteur
.
[31]
In the English-speaking world, his genre is sometimes characterised as "
magic journalism
" (in counterpoint to
magic realism
), a term coined by
Adam Hochschild
in 1994.
[32]
[33]
[34]
[35]
Kapu?ci?ski often introduced himself with the line "I am a poor reporter who unfortunately lacks the imagination of a writer".
[36]
Italian journalist
Tiziano Terzani
and Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski shared a similar vision of journalism.
[37]
Jaime Abello Banfi
, the friend and associate of
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
, reports that Garcia Marquez and Kapu?ci?ski, unbeknownst to each other, shared the opinion that the way to good journalism led through poetry (on account of the fact that it inculcates both the conciseness of expression and its aptness).
[38]
Kapu?ci?ski considered the ancient Greek historian
Herodotus
a great reporter and his master. He wrote a book
Travels with Herodotus
where he shows that the
Histories
of Herodotus are timeless and the masterpiece of reportage. He also considered
Curzio Malaparte
,
Melchior Wa?kowicz
,
Ksawery Pruszy?ski
and
Franciszek Gil
(1917?1960) to have been his literary models and stylistic precursors.
[16]
[39]
[40]
[41]
[42]
On some level, Pruszy?ski and Wa?kowicz shared a very similar approach to facts with Kapu?ci?ski, believing that the general picture of the story can be glued from bits and pieces to reveal a truth as a wholly independent construct.
[43]
Students of Kapu?ci?ski's work observed correspondences between his work and that of
J. M. Coetzee
in that both writers were supposedly beholden to the theory of "the responsibility of witness".
[44]
One reviewer saw in Kapu?ci?ski's mixing of subtle psychological reflection with vivid description an invitation to a comparison with
Joseph Conrad
;
[45]
Binyavanga Wainaina
and
Aleksandar Hemon
made the same comparison, if for other, less laudatory reasons.
[46]
[47]
Kapu?ci?ski confirmed to
Bill Deedes
the fact that
Conrad
was one of his literary inspirations.
[48]
Neal Ascherson
likened him to
Egon Erwin Kisch
(1885?1948) considered the father of literary reportage.
[49]
Kapu?ci?ski himself cites
Kisch
with approval as the "classic of reportage" who dealt a death blow to traditional forms of reporting by putting the person of the reporter at centre stage.
[31]
Certainly, neither
Kisch
nor Kapu?ci?ski believed in what might be called "
journalistic objectivity
": whereas Kisch thought it necessary for a (Communist) reporter to "engage politically" with his subject, Kapu?ci?ski would put objectivity as a concept out of court altogether, stating explicitly, "There is no such thing as objectivity. Objectivity is the question of the conscience of the one who writes. And he himself should answer the question is this what he writes close to the truth or not".
[50]
Kapu?ci?ski's views on his craft were published in 2000 in the book in Italian
Il cinico non e adatto a questo mestiere: conversazioni sul buon giornalismo
(A Cynic wouldn't Suit This Profession: Conversations about Good Journalism),
[51]
the book in Spanish from 2003 (distributed for free)
Los cinco sentidos del periodista (estar, ver, oir, compartir, pensar)
(The Journalist's Five Senses: Witnessing, Seeing, Listening, Sharing and Thinking)
[36]
and in his Polish book
Autoportret reportera
(A Reporter's Self Portrait)
[52]
published the same year. In 1987 Marek Miller talked with Kapu?ci?ski on the art of reportage and his life. These conversations were published in Poland in 2012 in the book
Pisanie
(Writing)
[53]
but broadcast in Canada on
Kalejdoskop Polski
TV as early as 1988. He was vocal denouncing manipulations and ignorance of big media.
[54]
Photographer
[
edit
]
Kapu?ci?ski debuted as a photographer in the year 2000 with the publication of the album entitled
Z Afryki
("Out of Africa"), a photographic harvest of his journeys in that continent. "Every snapshot is a recollection, a remembrance," he writes in the introduction, "and nothing can sensitise us more to the fragility of time, to its impermanent and fleeting nature?than photography."
[55]
A sequel, entitled
Ze ?wiata
("From the World", published in November 2008 with the introduction of
John Updike
), comprising a cross-section of Kapu?ci?ski's photographs from all parts of the world, contains some truly outstanding shots.
[56]
Posthumous and non-reportage works
[
edit
]
In
Ten Inny
("The Other"), a collection of lectures delivered in
Vienna
,
Graz
and
Krakow
, published shortly before his death, Kapu?ci?ski laments a state of affairs perpetuated by the myths which inculcate the notion of the Other as sub-human or non-human. He saw encountering the Other as the main challenge for the twenty-first century. The posthumously published
Ho dato voce ai poveri: dialogo con i giovani
("I Gave a Voice to the Poor: Conversations with the Youth";
Trent
, Il Margine, 2007; subsequently published in Poland as
Dałem głos ubogim. Rozmowy z młodzie??
;
Krakow
, Znak, 2008) is a record of Kapu?ci?ski's interactions with the students of the
University of Bolzano
in Italy in October 2006;
[57]
while
Rw?cy nurt historii. Zapiski o XX i XXI wieku
("In the Whirlpools of History: Jottings on the 20th and the 21st Centuries"; Krakow, Znak, 2007) is a compilation of interviews and lectures, reflecting Kapu?ci?ski's training as a historian and dealing with contemporary issues and their historical and cross-cultural parallels (including such issues as globalisation, Islam, the birth of the Third World, and the dawn of the Pacific civilisation).
[58]
Question:
Is it possible to describe a war on terror?
Kapu?ci?ski:
No; this is a web. Its structure is immensely difficult to scrutinize. We have to concede that there are many things in this world which are impossible to delineate.
?From an interview with Kapu?ci?ski published in
Press
magazine, 2006.
[16]
Kapu?ci?ski's pronouncements on current affairs were noteworthy: he thought that the causes of the
9/11 tragedy
, for example, were too complex to lend themselves to an exhaustively thorough analysis at present, although he offered an extensive and sophisticated exposition of some of the key elements of the puzzle in the
Clash of Civilisations
. He was critical on the
Clash of Civilisations
theory which he saw as an American vision of the world.
[59]
He told a BBC interviewer right after the attacks: "I greatly fear that we will waste this moment. That instead of meaningful dialogue, it will just be gates and metal detectors".
[60]
In an interview granted in 2002 to the then editor-in-chief of the monthly
Letras Libres
,
Ricardo Cayuela Gally
, Kapu?ci?ski opined that the war on terror, owing to the asymmetrical character of the combatants engaged in it, could only be won?and indeed easily, within a month?through a (re)introduction of "
Stalinism
", a method undesirable for the sole reason that it would leave the world under the permanent "hegemony" of the United States, a circumstance that would spell the end of "the free society".
[61]
In Poland, since 1986 Kapu?ci?ski was also known as a poet:
[62]
he privately confided in his Swedish translator,
Anders Bodegard
, that he considered this to be his primary identity.
[63]
In November 2007 the Canadian publishing house Biblioasis published Kapu?ci?ski's selected poems in English,
I Wrote Stone
, the first English translation of his poetry.
Los Angeles Times
wrote: "Big events (...) may have been treated lyrically in his prose, but (...) these poems capture the moments between crises, impressions that carry a book-length argument in a few lines".
[64]
Collected poems from his books were published in Poland and Canada in 2012 in both Polish and English in the book
Collected Poems
, translated by Diana Kuprel and Marek Kusiba.
Although he was not the sole model for the role, Kapu?ci?ski was given a portrayal as the main character in
Andrzej Wajda
's 1978 film
Without Anesthesia
.
[65]
[66]
Aleksandar Hemon
, the Bosnian-American novelist (who had previously impugned
Robert D. Kaplan
's stereotyping of "the Balkan mind"), in a critique of Kapu?ci?ski's Africa writings published in
The Village Voice
,
[
citation needed
]
accused Kapu?ci?ski's readers of turning a blind eye to "the underlying proto-racist essentialism" that informs his vision of and his approach to the cultures of the continent: "[Kapu?ci?ski] fumes against the racism absurdly based on skin colour, and would probably be shocked if told that his obsessive listing of essential differences [between "the African mind" and "the European mind"] is essentially racist".
[47]
[67]
[68]
Reception
[
edit
]
Kapu?ci?ski had a global reputation, and is one of the Polish writers translated into the highest number of foreign languages.
[69]
In an obituary published in
Der Spiegel
, Kapu?ci?ski was described by German journalist Claus Christian Malzahn as "one of the most credible journalists the world has ever seen".
[70]
Daniel Alarcon
, a Peruvian-American novelist, cited Kapu?ci?ski as a formative influence together with
Dostoyevsky
.
[71]
The American journalist and reportage-writer Richard Bernstein, saw value in the "penetrating intelligence" of Kapu?ci?ski's vision and in his "crystallised descriptive" style of writing.
[72]
The British journalist
Bill Deedes
, who had witnessed the
Rwandan genocide
first-hand, said of Kapu?ci?ski that what he "writes about Africa is authoritative as well as captivating. His account of how the Hutus and the Tutsis were drawn into that dark night of
genocide
in Rwanda is the most enlightening I have read anywhere" and that he had "transformed journalism into literature in his writings about Africa".
[48]
Professor Philip Melling of
Swansea University
has concurred with this opinion, citing Kapu?ci?ski as an authority on the Rwandan conflict.
[73]
Salman Rushdie
wrote about him: "One Kapu?ci?ski is worth more than a thousand whimpering and fantasizing scribblers. His exceptional combination of journalism and art allows us to feel so close to what Kapu?ci?ski calls the inexpressible true image of war".
[74]
Frequently mentioned as a favorite to win the Nobel Prize in literature, he never did. Kapu?ci?ski's dying before he could be awarded the Prize was bemoaned in the Swedish press as late as October 2010.
[75]
Since his death he has been offered many epitaphs in the press, such as, "The master of modern journalism",
[76]
"Translator of the World" and "The Greatest Reporter in the World",
[70]
"Herodotus of our times",
[77]
"Third World chronicler".
[78]
[79]
In Kapu?ci?ski, the personal search for authenticity is always linked to his relationship to those around him. In his writings, he always seeks the universal in the particular, a trait that John Merrill's ideological opposite in U.S. academic circles, University of Illinois media scholar Clifford G. Christians, would applaud. Truth, Christians has written, is "reason radiated by love", thus individual authenticity must be contingent on links to the other, the "I" always defined by its relationship to "Thou".
?Joseph B. Atkins and Bernard Ne?mah, "Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski: The Empathetic Existentialist", 2002.
[80]
Over the years, particularly since 1983 when
The Emperor
was named Book of the Year by
The Sunday Times
of London, Kapu?ci?ski was the recipient of many international literary prizes that brought recognition to his creative
oeuvre
: these included, for example, the biennial
Hanseatic Goethe Prize
awarded by the Hamburg-based foundation, the
Alfred Toepfer Stiftung
, which he received in 1999; or the Italian
Elsa Morante Prize
(Premio Elsa Morante, Sezione Culture D'Europa) in 2005, for his
Travels with Herodotus
(the new category of the Premio Elsa Morante, called "Cultures of Europe", in effect a separate prize awarded by the same jury, having apparently been created specially for him).
[81]
In 2001 Kapu?ci?ski received the literary
Prix Tropiques
of the
French Development Agency
for his book
The Shadow of the Sun
, published in France under the title
Ebene: Aventures africaines
, which had a year earlier been named the best book of the year by the French literary monthly,
Lire
; the book also won the Italian literary award,
Feudo Di Maida Prize
(in full, Premio Letterario Internazionale Feudo Di Maida), for the year 2000.
[82]
That same year (2000) Kapu?ci?ski was honoured with the prestigious
Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia
,
[83]
as well as having received the
Creola Prize
(Premio Creola) in
Bologna
(awarded for travel books and facilitation of intercultural encounters),
[84]
and the "Premio Letterario 'Della Resistenza'
"
of the
Piedmontese
city of
Omegna
(Premio Omegna).
[85]
In 2003 Kapu?ci?ski received the
Premio Grinzane Cavour
per la Lettura in
Turin
;
[86]
shared the
Prince of Asturias Award
(in the category "Communications and Humanities") with the Peruvian theologian
Gustavo Gutierrez
; and was awarded the
Kreisky Prize
(Bruno-Kreisky-Preis fur das politische Buch) for the entirety of his work ("Sonderpreis fur das publizistische Gesamtwerk"; the award ceremony having taken place in
Vienna
in May of the following year).
[87]
As the doyen of literary reportage, he was the keynote speaker at the inaugural ceremony, held in Berlin in October 2003, for the
Lettre Ulysses Awards for the Art of Reportage
.
[88]
In 2005 the Italian edition of Kapu?ci?ski's poems (which appeared in print the previous year as
Taccuino d'appunti
in the translation of
Silvano De Fanti
) won the state-funded
Naples Prize
(Premio Napoli).
[89]
To complete the round-up of Italian prizes, the next year Kapu?ci?ski was awarded a special category of the
Ilaria Alpi Prize
for the entirety of his career (Premio Ilaria Alpi alla carriera), one of the best-known of Italian journalistic awards, named for an
Italian investigative reporter
murdered in
Somalia
in 1994 (although the scope of the prize is limited to TV journalism, special categories of prizes for which he would not otherwise qualify?as also for example in the case of the Elsa Morante Prize?have been created for Kapu?ci?ski).
[90]
Kapu?ci?ski received honorary doctorates from the
University of Silesia
(1997), the
University of Wrocław
(2001), the
University of Sofia
(2002), the
University of Gda?sk
(2004),
Jagiellonian University
(2004). In June 2005 Kapu?ci?ski was invested with an honorary doctorate by the private
Ramon Llull University
of Barcelona, Spain;
[91]
and in May 2006, just eight months before his death, he received a similar degree from the
University of Udine
in Italy.
[92]
In 2010,
Warsaw City Council
established the
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski Award
as a form of distinction and promotion of the most worthwhile reportage books which touch on important contemporary issues, evoke reflection, and deepen our knowledge of the world of other cultures.
[93]
Controversy and biographies
[
edit
]
Since at least 1987
[94]
Kapu?ci?ski's veracity as a reporter has been disputed, and he responded with the explanation that his work had been allegorical.
[95]
By his own account he chose to avoid dates, names, and orders of events.
[96]
Since at least 2001, there has been literary debate about to which genre Kapu?ci?ski's work should be categorized.
A 2001 review by
John Ryle
concerned the Kapu?ci?ski memoir entitled
The Shadow of the Sun
released in the same year.
[97]
Ryle alleged that questions about the reliability of Kapu?ci?ski's reportage began with
The Emperor
. Scrutinizing Kapu?ci?ski's translation of expressions of
fealty
by Ethiopian courtiers, Ryle said that "native speakers of Amharic say that these honorifics correspond to no known expressions in their language." Ryle wrote that he visited Ethiopia in the 1990s when the action of
The Shadow of the Sun
was taking place. He said there were inaccuracies in the story, for example, that
Mengistu
's generals did not escape justice and that the 'academics' among them were few and far in between.
[97]
Ryle noticed that the initials of Kapu?ci?ski's informants did not correspond to the names of witnesses in the trial of the
Derg
in
Addis Ababa
.
[97]
He added that Kapu?ci?ski's description of the capital devoid of bookstores did not correspond to what he has seen on his last visit there, because he found six bookstores there. He also disputed Kapu?ci?ski's assertion that Haile Selassie did not read books by saying he had a library, was well read, and annotated documents.
[97]
Ryle continued:
In answer to such criticisms it has been argued that The Emperor is not meant to be about Ethiopia at all, that it is an allegory of Communist power in Poland, or of autocratic regimes in general. ... Like Kapu?ci?ski's other books, The Emperor is presented unambiguously as factual reportage and it asserts its claim on the reader's attention as such. ... There is a double standard at work in such excuses, a clear eurocentric bias. Consider the hypothetical case of an author publishing a book of scandalous revelations about the last years of the Gierek regime in communist Poland, using dubious information obtained in obscure circumstances from anonymous and untraceable members of the Polish Internal Security Police. It would not be considered a reasonable defence of such a book to say that it did not matter whether it was true or not because it was really intended, not as a book about Poland, but as an allegorical account of events in imperial Ethiopia. ... Such criticisms do not rob Kapu?ci?ski's writing of its bright allure, its illuminating moments, its often lively sympathy for the people of the countries he writes about, but they warn us not to take it seriously as a guide to reality.
[97]
Polish scholars Dr. Beata Nowacka (
University of Silesia
)
[98]
and Dr. Zygmunt Zi?tek (
Polish Academy of Sciences
)
[99]
wrote the first biography of Kapu?ci?ski, which was published by
Znak
in 2008 under the title
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski. Biografia pisarza
.
[100]
Their monograph was translated in 2010 to Spanish (
Kapuscinski. Una biografia literaria
) and in 2012 to Italian (
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski. Biografia di uno scrittore
). Professor Silvano De Fanti from the
University of Udine
wrote Kapu?ci?ski's biography for the
Opere
(2009), published in Italian in the
Meridiani series
which aims to collect major writers of all times from all countries.
[101]
[102]
In 2010, a Polish language monograph titled
Kapu?ci?ski Non-Fiction
written by
Artur Domosławski
was published in Warsaw.
[103]
Kapu?ci?ski's widow, Alicja Kapu?ci?ska, sought an injunction against Domosławski's book, claiming defamation and invasion of privacy. The injunction was rejected by the Polish court on the grounds that she had chosen to give Domosławski access to her husband's archive.
[104]
In an interview with
The Guardian
Domosławski said: "Kapu?ci?ski was experimenting in journalism. He wasn't aware he had crossed the line between journalism and literature. I still think his books are wonderful and precious. But ultimately, they belong to fiction."
[104]
Domosławski's monograph was translated to English in 2012 by Antonia Lloyd-Jones and first published by
Verso Books
as
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski. A Life
in 2012.
[105]
Neal Ascherson
defended Kapu?ci?ski in March 2010 by saying: "None of the doubts, as far as I can see, are about the despatches and features he sent to newspapers, or to the
Polish Press Agency
. They are about his books. The adventures and encounters he describes in his books are on a different level of veracity. Like his friend
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
, Kapu?ci?ski used to talk about "literary reportage". You're meant to believe what you are being told, but not in every literal detail. ... Scrupulous in his journalism, in his books he was capable of inventing to make a truth even truer. He was a great story-teller, but not a liar."
[106]
Timothy Garton Ash
was more critical. Ash wrote later that month (reprinted in his
Facts Are Subversive
): "with Kapuscinski, we keep crossing from the Kenya of fact to the Tanzania of fiction, and back again, but the transition is nowhere explicitly signalled."
[107]
Reviewing the English translation of Domosławski's book for
The Financial Times
in 2012, the then permanent secretary of the
Nobel
-awarding
Swedish Academy
,
Peter Englund
, said: "In any case, the "literary" in "literary reportage" doesn't absolve you of your duty to the facts. Neither is it possible, in my mind, to see it as a sliding scale, in which you are able slowly to introduce droplets of fiction into a factual text until, at a certain point, the mixture transforms into pure fiction. No, once an element of fiction is introduced into a text everything immediately turns into fiction ? maybe fiction with a strong resemblance to the real world, but still fiction."
[108]
The first biographers, Nowacka and Zi?tek, responded to Domosławski's allegations with their own new book,
Literatura non-fiction. Czytanie Kapu?ci?skiego po Domosławskim
(
Non?fiction literature: Reading Kapu?ci?ski after Domosławski
)
[1]
which was published in Polish by the
University of Silesia
Press in 2013.
[109]
They oppose the accusation of creating a myth, and his own legend, as well as confabulations and opportunism, showing a selected and tendentious usage of the author's life knowledge, the lack of comprehension of literary reportage, manipulation with texts and quotations, as well as numerous factual and technical mistakes made by Domosławski. In 2013 the publisher of Domosławski's book apologized to Alicja Kapu?ci?ska and her daughter.
[110]
In May 2015 amendments were ordered by a court in Warsaw which also ruled that Domosławski should apologise to Kapu?ci?ski's widow, however in August 2015 the same court has ruled that the author will not have to apologise to Kapu?ci?ski's daughter.
[111]
[112]
Selected books
[
edit
]
Works available in English
[
edit
]
- Another Day of Life
(
Jeszcze dzie? ?ycia
) (1976)
- The Soccer War
(
Wojna futbolowa
) (1978)
- The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat
(
Cesarz
) (1978)
- Shah of Shahs
(
Szachinszach
) (1982)
- Imperium
(
Imperium
) (1993)
- The Shadow of the Sun
(
Heban
) (1998)
- Our Responsibilities in a Multicultural World
(
Powinno?ci obywatela ?wiata wielokulturowego
) (2002)
[113]
- Travels with Herodotus
(
Podro?e z Herodotem
) (2007)
[114]
- Encountering the Other: The Challenge for the Twenty-first Century?The Inaugural Lecture of the Thirty-six[th] Annual School of Polish Language and Culture at the Jagiellonian University, 5 July 2005
(
Spotkanie z Innym jako wyzwanie XXI wieku: wykład z okazji otwarcia 36. Szkoły J?zyka i Kultury Polskiej Uniwersytetu Jagiello?skiego
) (2005)
[115]
[116]
- Inside an Iceberg
(
Wewn?trz gory lodowej
; extract from
The Shadow of the Sun
) (2007)
- I Wrote Stone: The Selected Poetry of Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
(2007)
[117]
- The Cobra's Heart
(extract from
The Shadow of the Sun
) (2007)
- The Other
(
Ten Inny
) (2008)
[118]
? A collection of the author's lectures.
- My Morning Walk
(
Spacer poranny
) (2009)
[119]
[120]
? The reportage about Poland and Warsaw, written in the 1990s and found after Kapu?ci?ski's death. Published in a book which, besides Polish original text, includes translations to English, German and Spanish.
- Collected Poems
(
Wiersze zebrane
) (2012)
[121]
Works currently unavailable in English
[
edit
]
- The Polish Bush
(
Busz po polsku
) (1962) ? A collection of early essays.
- Black Stars
(
Czarne gwiazdy
) (1963) ? A book which focuses on
Kwame Nkrumah
and
Patrice Lumumba
.
- The Kirghiz Dismounts
(
Kirgiz schodzi z konia
) (1968) ? Essays and articles about seven of the
Caucasian
and Central Asian republics of the (then) Soviet Union (some of the material subsequently incorporated in
Imperium
).
- If All Africa...
(
Gdyby cała Afryka
) (1969) ? A collection of essays and articles about Africa.
- Why Karl von Spreti Died
(
Dlaczego zgin?ł Karl von Spreti
) (1970) ? A book about
Guatemala
during the 1960s and 1970s, in the background of the assassination of
Karl von Spreti
.
- Christ With a Rifle on His Shoulder
(
Chrystus z karabinem na ramieniu
) (1975) ? A book which focuses on the partisan movements in Africa, Latin America and Middle East.
- An Invitation to Georgia
(
Zaproszenie do Gruzji
) (1983)
- The Notebook
(
Notes
) (1986) ? First collection of the author's poetry.
- Lapidarium
(1990)
- Lapidarium II
(1995)
- Lapidarium III
(1997)
- Lapidarium IV
(2000)
- A Cynic wouldn't Suit This Profession: Conversations about Good Journalism
(
Il cinico non e adatto a questo mestiere: conversazioni sul buon giornalismo
) (2000)
[51]
? Later translated into Spanish and Polish, includes a previously unpublished dialogue with
John Berger
.
- Lapidarium V
(2002)
- A Reporter's Self Portrait
(
Autoportret reportera
) (2003)
[52]
? A collection of interviews with and quotes by Kapu?ci?ski, translated into Hungarian (2004), Spanish (2005), Italian (2006) and French (2008).
- The Journalist's Five Senses: Witnessing, Seeing, Listening, Sharing and Thinking
(
Los cinco sentidos del periodista (estar, ver, oir, compartir, pensar)
) (2003)
[36]
? distributed for free
- The Laws of Nature
(
Prawa natury
) (2006) ? Second collection of the author's poetry
- I Gave a Voice to the Poor: Conversations with the Youth
(
Ho dato voce ai poveri: dialogo con i giovani
) (2007) ? A collection of interactions with Italian students.
- Kapu?ci?ski: I cannot Encompass the World
(
Kapu?ci?ski: nie ogarniam ?wiata
) (2007) ? A collection of seven interviews with Kapu?ci?ski between 1991 and 2006.
- Lapidarium VI
(2007)
- Collected Poetry
(
Wiersze zebrane
) (2008)
- Hospital Diary
(
Zapiski szpitalne
) (2008) ? Kapu?ci?ski's last writings.
[122]
- Writing: Marek Miller talks with Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
(
Pisanie. Z Ryszardem Kapu?ci?skim rozmawia Marek Miller
), Warsaw, Czytelnik, 2012 (book + DVD)
[53]
? conversations with Kapu?ci?ski on the art of reportage, recorded in the 1980s.
Magazine contributions in English (by issue)
[
edit
]
- Granta
15: A Warsaw Diary
- Granta 16: Science
- Granta 20: In Trouble Again
- Granta 21: The Story-Teller
- Granta 26: Travel
- Granta 28: Birthday Special!
- Granta 33: What Went Wrong?
- Granta 48: Africa
- Granta 73: Necessary Journeys
- Granta 88: Mothers
- see also, in book form: Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski [
et al
.],
The Best of Granta Reportage
, London, Granta, 1993.
Photography
[
edit
]
- Out of Africa
(
Z Afryki
) (2000)
[55]
? The author's first photo album. Published in Spain as
Desde Africa
(2001), and in Italy as
Dall'Africa
(2002).
- Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski: Fragment
(2002) ? Catalogue of the author's photography exhibition held at the Opus Gallery in
Wrocław
in May 2002.
- From the World
(
Ze ?wiata
) (2008) ? A collection of the author's photographs from all over the world, with an introduction by
John Updike
(text in Polish).
- My Morning Walk
(
Spacer poranny
) (2009) ? A collection of the author's photographs from the
Mokotow Field
in Warsaw (text in English, German and Spanish, as well as Polish).
- Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski: From the Imperium
(2010) ? Catalogue of the author's photography exhibition held at the Zach?ta National Gallery of Art in
Warsaw
, 18 December 2010 ? 20 February 2011.
- The Polish Bush: Postscriptum
(
Busz po polsku. Postscriptum
) (2012) ? A collection of the author's photographs from the exhibition
Konin
jak Colorado
. These photographs were discovered in 2010.
Other
[
edit
]
- Pracownia Reporta?u (Beck et al., inspired by Marek Miller),
Who Allowed Journalists Here
(
Kto tu wpu?cił dziennikarzy
),
Independent Publishing House NOWA
, 1985 ? 41 conversations with journalists (including Kapu?ci?ski) recorded between September 1980 and May 1981 about the Gda?sk Shipyard strikes in 1980.
[123]
- Adam Hochschild
,
Finding the Trapdoor: Essays, Portraits, Travels
, Syracuse, N.Y., Syracuse University Press, 1997 ("Magic Journalism," pp. 241?250).
- Anders Bodegard and Maria Soderberg,
A Visit to Pinsk with Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
, tr. Frank Gabriel Perry, Enskede (Sweden), Maria Soderberg, 1999;
ISBN
91-630-7912-7
.
- Kazimierz Wolny-Zmorzy?ski,
Wobec ?wiata i mediow. Ryszarda Kapu?ci?skiego dylematy dziennikarskie, literackie, społeczno-polityczne
, Krakow, Instytut Dziennikarstwa Uniwersytetu Jagiello?skiego, 1999
[2]
- Gda?ski Areopag ? Forum Dialogu (Bock et al.),
The Truth
(
Prawda
), Gda?sk ? Pelplin, WDP Bernardinum, 2004,
ISBN
83-7380-206-1
? Includes conversations with Kapu?ci?ski and other interlocutors on the subject of truth, which took place on 9 November 2003 in
Gda?sk
.
- Krzysztof Masło?,
Love is not Our Lot
(
Miło?? nie jest nam dana
), Warsaw, Proszy?ski i S-ka, 2005 ? Includes conversations with Kapu?ci?ski and other interlocutors.
- Aleksandra Kunce,
The anthropology of points. Deliberations on texts by Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
(
Antropologia punktow. Rozwa?ania przy tekstach Ryszarda Kapu?ci?skiego
), Katowice, Silesia University Press, 2008
[3]
- Maciej Sadowski,
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski: Photobiography
, Warsaw, VEDA, 2013 ? in English and Polish.
[124]
- Marek Kusiba,
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski from far and near
(
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski z daleka i z bliska
), Warsaw, Znak 2018
[125]
Documentary films
[
edit
]
Kapu?ci?ski wrote a screenplay for a 1962 Polish documentary film
80-dni Lumumby
(80 days of Lumumba) directed by Tadeusz Jaworski about
Patrice Lumumba
.
[126]
Imperfect Journey
is a 1994 Ethiopian documentary film directed by
Haile Gerima
. Gerima travelled to Ethiopia together with Kapu?ci?ski. The film explores the political and psychic recovery of the Ethiopian people after the repression of the military junta of
Mengistu Haile Mariam
.
Documentary films about Kapu?ci?ski include Jacek Talczewski's
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
(Polish, 1987, the idea of the film by Marek Miller),
[127]
Filip Bajon's
Poszukiwany Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
(Polish, 1998), Piotr Załuski's
Druga Arka Noego
(Polish, 2000),
Pejza?e dzieci?stwa. Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
(Polish, 2005), Gabrielle Pfeiffer's
A Poet on the Front Line: The Reportage of Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
(English, 2004),
[128]
[129]
Beata Hy?y-Czołpi?ska's
Ostatnia ksi??ka Ryszarda Kapu?ci?skiego
(Polish, 2008), Olga Prud'homme-Farges'
L'Afrique vue par Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
(French, 2014, also in German as
Am Puls Afrikas
).,
[130]
and Ela Chrzanowska's
Los rios. El viaje a Mexico con el Maestro Kapu?ci?ski
(Spanish and Polish, 2016).
See also
[
edit
]
Notes and references
[
edit
]
- ^
Kaufman, Michael T. (24 January 2007).
"Ryszard Kapuscinski, Polish Writer of Shimmering Allegories and News, Dies at 74"
.
The New York Times
.
- ^
Bo?ena Dudko (15 May 2009).
"Terzani pisał do niego Maestro"
.
Gazeta Wyborcza
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Lobo, Ramon (23 April 2006).
"El sentido de la vida es cruzar fronteras"
.
El Pais
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Luis Sepulveda (2008).
"Ryszard Kapuscinski: Simplemente un Maestro"
.
Le Monde Diplomatique
. Retrieved
4 January
2014
.
- ^
a
b
c
"Polish chronicler of Third World Kapuscinski dies"
.
Reuters
. UK. 23 January 2007
. Retrieved
3 January
2014
.
- ^
Nowacka B., Zi?tek Z. "Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski. Biografia pisarza", Znak, Krakow 2008
- ^
Mariusz Szczygieł (2 March 2010).
"Biografia Ryszarda Kapuscinski"
.
Gazeta Wyborcza
(in Polish)
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Bill Buford, "An Interview with Ryszard Kapu?ci?sk"
.
The Storyteller
. Vol. Spring, no. 21. Granta.com. 1 March 1987. Archived from
the original
on 12 September 2011
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Krzysztof Masło? (27 January 2007).
"Osobliwa skryto?? Ryszarda Kapu?ci?skiego (The Remarkable Reticence of Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski)"
.
Rzeczpospolita
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Nie ?yje Alicja Kapu?ci?ska. Miała 89 lat
- ^
Adam Michnik (27 January 2007).
"Rysiek dobry i m?dry (Good and Wise Ricky)"
.
Gazeta Wyborcza
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
In May 2007
Newsweek Polska
magazine wrote that Kapu?ci?ski worked for the Communist Polish secret service from 1965 to 1972 or 1977.
"Teczka pisarza" (The Dossier of a Writer; an interview with Ernest Skalski)
[
permanent dead link
]
. Nowacka and Zi?tek in the book published in 2013
Literatura "non-fiction". Czytanie Kapu?ci?skiego po Domosławskim
(Non?fiction literature: Reading Kapu?ci?ski after Domosławski) state that in the case of Kapu?ci?ski one can not say about Kapu?ci?ski's constant cooperation, rather about three cases of secret service's extortion on Kapu?ci?ski of intelligence activities (during his travels abroad) from which he evaded either not writing the demanded "reports" or writing analysis which could be published in the official press.
- ^
Cf. Jan Skarbowski [
et al.
],
Nowa Huta: pierwsze socjalistyczne miasto w Polsce
,
Krakow
, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1971. Similarly, the French urban sociologist,
Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe
(1913?1998),
called Nowa Huta "
ville phare du socialisme
" (flagship conurbation of socialism).
- ^
Mariusz Szczygieł (2 March 2010).
"Biografia Ryszarda Kapuscinski"
.
Gazeta Wyborcza
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Diana Kuprel, "Literary Reportage: Between and Beyond Art and Fact"; in:
History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries
, ed. M. Cornis-Pope and J. Neubauer, Amsterdam, Benjamins, 2004?2006, vol.1, p.384.
ISBN
90-272-3452-3
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
"Antyciała: z Ryszardem Kapu?ci?skim rozmawia Andrzej Skworz" (Antibodies: An Interview with Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski Conducted by A. Skworz)
,
Press
(monthly magazine), No. 2 (121), February 2006, pp. 25?28. ISSN 1425-9818.
- ^
"The Soccer Wars (excerpt from jacket)"
.
Granta
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Kapu?ci?ski's "official" biography on the
Kapu?ci?ski.info
Internet portal"
. Kapuscinski.info. 31 January 2007
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Donald Morrison (7 June 2007).
"Fellow Travelers"
.
Time
. Archived from
the original
on 1 July 2007
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Schwartz, Matthias: The Technique of Documenting. On the Early Reportages of Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski and Hanna Krall,
Documentary Aesthetics in the long 1960s in Eastern Europe and Beyond
, ed. by Clemens Gunther and Matthias Schwartz. Amsterdam: Brill 2024, 164?185.
- ^
Ernesto Guevara,
Dziennik z Boliwii Che Guevara
, intro. Fidel Castro, ed. & tr. R. Kapu?ci?ski, Warsaw, Wydawnictwo Ksi??ka i Wiedza, 1970.
- ^
A film-script adaptation of Kapu?ci?ski's
The Emperor
, written by
Marcel Łozi?ski
for the film-director
Andrzej Wajda
in 1979, has never reached the production stage, having been banned by Communist censors (Kapu?ci?ski's original book was not affected).
Monika Mokrzycka-Pokora (August 2003).
"Andrzej Wajda"
. culture.pl. Archived from
the original
on 19 March 2013
. Retrieved
10 January
2013
.
- ^
"Ze studentami rozmawia Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski"
[Polish Students interview Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski about a revolution].
Wola
(in Polish).
30
(236): 4. 30 November 1987. Archived from
the original
on 20 May 2014
. Retrieved
19 May
2014
.
- ^
Pracownia Reporta?u (Beck et al., inspired by Marek Miller),
Who Allowed Journalists Here
("Kto tu wpu?cił dziennikarzy"),
Independent Publishing House NOWA
, 1985
http://kapuscinski.info/kto-tu-wpuscil-dziennikarzy.html
- ^
"Arena: Kapu?ci?ski"
. BBC Four. 1988
. Retrieved
15 October
2014
.
- ^
Brittain, Victoria (25 January 2007).
"Obituary: Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski"
.
The Guardian
. Retrieved
15 October
2014
.
- ^
"Leven & werken: Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski (Paul Scheffer speaks with Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski)"
(in English and Dutch). VPRO. 1999
. Retrieved
15 October
2014
.
- ^
Kapu?ci?ski R., "Encountering the Other", Universitas, Krakow 2007
- ^
"Institute of Books"
. Instytutksiazki.pl
. Retrieved
18 August
2013
.
- ^
Mackey, Robert (8 March 2010).
"Fact, Fiction and Kapuscinski"
.
New York Times
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
a
b
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski,
Autoportret reportera
, ed. K. Str?czek, Krakow, Znak, 2003, p. 42.
ISBN
83-240-0347-9
.
- ^
Adam Hochschild (3 November 1994).
"Magic Journalism"
.
The New York Review of Books
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Elzbieta Foeller-Pituch.
"Ryszard Kapuscinski"
.
The Literary Encyclopedia
. Northwestern University
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
In an article in
Slate Magazine
, writer
Jack Shafer
called Kapu?ci?ski a fabulist who did not adhere to the basic rules of journalism.
"The Lies of Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski".
Jack Shafer,
Slate Magazine
, 25 January 2007. As part of his criticism, Shafer cited the anthropology professor
John Ryle
. His condemnation was rebutted by
Meghan O'Rourke
in
Slate
five days later; O'Rourke contended that Kapu?ci?ski's invention of petty details to reveal a larger truth did not make him a bad journalist. O'Rourke, Meghan (30 January 2007).
"Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski: Defending his literary license".
Slate Magazine
- ^
The British journalist
Michela Wrong
wrote in the
New Statesman
, "Kapu?ci?ski would have helped his own case if he had been more consistent, and modest, about what he offered. If you present your work as 'magical journalism', of the
Garcia Marquez
genre, best not simultaneously lecture a younger generation of journalists, as he did, on their imprecision. And if your prime years in the field were largely confined to the
Cold War
, best not present yourself as an eternal sage on the subject."
Pilger, John; Wrong, Michela (12 February 2007).
"Kapu?ci?ski, More Magical than Real"
.
New Statesman
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
a
b
c
Santiago Real de Azua (April 2004).
"Melancholy defense of a fast-changing profession: A celebrated Polish journalist reflects on the future of the news"
.
IDBAmerica
. Archived from
the original
on 20 September 2016
. Retrieved
23 January
2014
.
- ^
"Information on the website dedicated to Tiziano Terzani"
.
- ^
Artur Domosławski Gazeta Wyborcza Cartagena ? Bogota (19 January 2008).
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.
Gazeta Wyborcza
. Retrieved
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2011
.
- ^
Tomasz Łubie?ski (b. 1938), "Ucze? Kapu?ci?skiego?" (Kapu?ci?ski's Pupil?)
,
Gazeta Wyborcza
, 3 March 2010, p. 13 (in Polish) ("...by? mo?e uwa?ał za swoich reporterskich poprzednikow Melchiora Wa?kowicza i Curzio Malapartego, dla ktorych liczył si? efekt, wra?enie, szczegoł o sile metafory...")
- ^
K. Janowska; P. Mucharski (3 June 2001).
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.
Tygodnik Powszechny
. Retrieved
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.
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Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski,
Autoportret reportera
Archived
24 July 2011 at the
Wayback Machine
, Krakow, Znak (2003).
ISBN
83-240-0347-9
. (Of Pruszy?ski and Wa?kowicz, Kapu?ci?ski says: "Obu znałem osobi?cie, obu podziwiałem, kochałem i ceniłem." (I have known them both personally, I have admired them both, I have loved them and esteemed them).)
- ^
"El polaco que denunciaba todos los crimenes"
.
Kapuscinski.es
(in Spanish)
. Retrieved
21 July
2014
.
Pruszynski, de quien se inspiro el gran reportero polaco Ryszard Kapuscinski
- ^
Diana Kuprel, "Literary Reportage: Between and Beyond Art and Fact"; in:
History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th centuries
, ed. M. Cornis-Pope and J. Neubauer, Amsterdam, John Benjamins Pub. Co., 2004?2006, vol. 1, pp. 382?83.
ISBN
90-272-3452-3
.
- ^
Gosia Kasperska, "Coetzee i Kapu?ci?ski?proba zestawienia afryka?skich motywow tworczo?ci"
Archived
22 March 2012 at the
Wayback Machine
; unpublished (?) dissertation,
University of Wrocław
; published on
Kapuscinski.info
Internet portal, 18 March 2011.
- ^
"Poland's Loss: Poland's Giant of Reportage is Dead"
.
The Economist
. 25 January 2007
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
bulletsandhoney.
"African Bullets & Honey, the literary blog of the writer"
. Bulletsandhoney.wordpress.com
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
a
b
Aleksandar Hemon (24 April 2001).
"Misguided Tour"
.
The Village Voice
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
a
b
W. F. Deedes (15 June 2001).
"A Good Man in Africa"
.
The Daily Telegraph
. UK
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Neal Ascherson (21 June 2001).
"In the Pit of History"
.
The New York Review of Books
. Nybooks.com
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
See:
Europa jest na szcz??ie mała
, z Ryszardem Kapu?ci?skim rozmawia Jacek Antczak, "Słowo Polskie" 1999, no. 12. Later published in Kapu?ci?ski's book
Autoportret reportera
, Znak, 2003, p. 40. Quote in Polish: "Nie ma czego? takiego jak obiektywizm. Obiektywizm to jest kwestia sumienia tego, ktory pisze. I sam powinien sobie udzieli? odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy to co pisze, jest bliskie prawdy, czy nie."
- ^
a
b
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski,
Il cinico non e adatto a questo mestiere: conversazioni sul buon giornalismo
, ed. M. Nadotti; Rome, Edizioni e/o, 2000. Published as part of the series "Piccola biblioteca morale", No. 26.,
"EDIZIONI E/O | Catalogo | Il cinico non e adatto a questo mestiere"
. Archived from
the original
on 1 February 2014
. Retrieved
23 January
2014
.
ISBN
88-7641-414-2
.
- ^
a
b
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski,
Autoportret reportera
, Krakow, Znak, 2003.
http://www.znak.com.pl/kartoteka,ksiazka,20,Autoportret-reportera
- ^
a
b
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski,
Pisanie
, Warszawa, Czytelnik, 2012.
http://czytelnik.pl/?ID=ksiazka&ID2=392
- ^
"The reporter as poet: The Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski may be one of our last great foreign correspondents in whose reports morality, philosophy and poetry exist side by side with fact. Now something of a media star, he joins the modern historians with a new book about the end of the Soviet Union - Arts and Entertainment - The Independent"
.
Independent.co.uk
. 29 October 2014. Archived from
the original
on 29 October 2014
. Retrieved
28 June
2023
.
- ^
a
b
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski,
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski z Afryki
, Bielsko-Biała, Wydawnictwo Buffi, 2000; 128 pp.
ISBN
83-906554-9-7
.
- ^
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski,
Ze ?wiata
, introd. John Updike, ed. I. Wojciechowska,
Krakow
, Społeczny Instytut Wydawniczy Znak, 2008.
ISBN
978-83-240-1053-0
.
Excerpts
- ^
"Publishers' info"
. Znak.com.pl. Archived from
the original
on 18 September 2011
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Publishers' info
. Znak.com.pl
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski, "Zderzenie cywilizacji" (The Clash of Civilisations), an interview"
. Chomikuj.pl
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Magdalena Rittenhouse (12 February 2007).
"Remembrance: Ryszard Kapuscinski"
.
The Nation
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Ricardo Cayuela Gally (July 2002).
"Entrevista con Ryszard Kapuscinski"
.
Letras Libres
(in Spanish)
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"The reporter as poet: The Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski may be one of our last great foreign correspondents in whose reports morality, philosophy and poetry exist side by side with fact." by Ian Parker (The Independent, 18 September 1994),
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-reporter-as-poet-the-polish-writer-ryszard-kapuscinski-may-be-one-of-our-last-great-foreign-correspondents-in-whose-reports-morality-philosophy-and-poetry-exist-side-by-side-with-fact-now-something-of-a-media-star-he-joins-the-modern-historians-with-a-new-book-about-the-end-of-the-soviet-union-1449539.html
Retrieved 1 February 2014.
- ^
"Anders Bodegard o ?mierci Ryszarda Kapu?ci?skiego"
. Instytut Ksi??ki. 24 January 2007. Archived from
the original
on 29 September 2011
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Owchar, Nick (29 March 2008).
"Kapu?ci?ski... the poet?"
. Los Angeles Times Books
. Retrieved
28 June
2018
.
- ^
Tomasz Łubie?ski (3 March 2010).
"Ucze? Kapu?ci?skiego? (Kapu?ci?ski's Pupil?)"
.
Gazeta Wyborcza
. p. 13
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Bez"
. Bolekczyta.filmaster.pl. 25 March 2010
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Rice, Andrew (1 October 2007).
"The Passenger"
,
The Nation
- ^
The Economist
magazine said, "[Kapu?ci?ski] creates an Africa of his own."
"African Memoir: Bus Rides"
.
The Economist
. 28 June 2001
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"?wiatowi pisarze: Najcz??ciej tłumaczeni polscy autorzy wspołcze?ni w ostatniej dekadzie (World Writers: Most-Frequently Translated Contemporary Polish Authors in the Last Decade, 1990?2000)"
.
Polityka
. 7 October 2000. pp. 58?60
. Retrieved
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2011
.
- ^
a
b
Malzahn, Claus Christian (24 January 2007).
"Zum Tode Ryszard Kapuscinskis: Der beste Reporter der Welt"
.
Der Spiegel
.
Ryszard Kapuscinski gehort zu den glaubwurdigsten Journalisten, die es je gegeben hat.
- ^
"Daniel Alarcon on
War by Candlelight
: A Conversation with Daniel Alarcon"
. HarperCollins. 24 March 2010
. Retrieved
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2011
.
- ^
Richard Bernstein (11 May 2001).
"The Shadow of the Sun: Africa, a Mosaic of Mystery and Sorrow"
.
The New York Times
. Retrieved
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2011
.
- ^
Cf. Philip Melling,
Fundamentalism in America: Millennialism, Identity, and Militant Religion
, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1999, p. xiv.
ISBN
0-7486-0978-4
.
- ^
(in Polish)
"Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski nie ?yje"
Gazeta Wyborcza
(23 January 2007).
- ^
"Bjorn Wiman: Anna Politkovskajas minne vore vart ett Nobelpris"
,
Dagens Nyheter
7 October 2010. ("Polske Ryszard Kapuscinski gick dessvarre bort innan han fick priset...")
- ^
"The Best Journalist in the World?"
.
Europe Today
. BBC. 24 January 2007. Archived from
the original
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. Retrieved
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2007
.
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"Ein Herodot fur unsere Zeit"
.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
. 24 January 2007. Archived from
the original
on 19 December 2007
. Retrieved
25 January
2007
.
- ^
"Third World chronicler Kapuscinski dies"
. CNN. 23 January 2007. Archived from
the original
on 27 January 2007
. Retrieved
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2007
.
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kai/dpa (23 January 2007).
"Polnischer Autor Kapuscinski gestorben"
.
Der Spiegel
(in German)
. Retrieved
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2007
.
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Joseph B. Atkins and Bernard Ne?mah, "Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski: The Empathetic Existentialist"; in:
The Mission: Journalism, Ethics and the World
, ed. J. B. Atkins, Ames, Iowa, Iowa State University Press, 2002, p. 221.
ISBN
0-8138-2188-6
.
- ^
"Official announcement of the 2005 award of the Premio Elsa Morante (Sezione Culture D'Europa) to Kapu?ci?ski"
. Premioelsamorante.it. Archived from
the original
on 22 July 2011
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Official photo showing Kapu?ci?ski receiving the Feudo Di Maida prize"
. Feudodimaida.it. Archived from
the original
on 22 July 2011
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
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"Official citation for the 2000 Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia"
. Premioletterarioviareggiorepaci.it. Archived from
the original
on 27 July 2010
. Retrieved
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.
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"Premio Creola a Kapuschinski"
.
La Repubblica
. 30 September 2000. p. 9
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.
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Istituto storico della Resistenza e della societA contemporanea nel Novarese e nel Verbano Cusio Ossola PIERO FORNARA.
"Premio Omegna: I vincitori del Premio Omegna dal 1995"
(in Italian). Istituto storico della Resistenza e della societa contemporanea nel Novarese e nel Verbano Cusio Ossola. Archived from
the original
on 6 October 2011
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Premio Grinzane per la Lettura a Kapuscinski: la motivazione"
(in Italian). Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore. Archived from
the original
on 2 August 2012
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Kreisky-Preis-TragerInnen 2003"
(in German). The Renner Institut. Archived from
the original
on 21 August 2011
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Lettre Ulysses Award Keynote Speech of 2003 (English version) on the official website for the Award"
. Lettre-ulysses-award.org. 4 October 2003
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Official notification of the Fondazione Premio Napoli listing Kapu?ci?ski as the recipient of the prize"
. Premionapoli.it
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Vincenzo Sassu (10 March 2006).
"A Ryszard Kapuscinski il Premio Ilaria Alpi alla carriera"
.
ComunicLab.it
. Faculty of Communications Science, Sapienza Universita di Roma. Archived from
the original
on 23 March 2012
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Official notification of the Ramon Llull University announcing the award of honorary doctorate to Kapu?ci?ski"
. Url.edu
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Official announcement by the University of Udine of the conferment of honorary degree on Kapu?ci?ski"
(in Italian). Qui.uniud.it
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
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"Nagroda im. Ryszarda Kapu?ci?skiego ? Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski"
.
Kulturalna Warszawa
. 17 May 2013
. Retrieved
3 January
2014
.
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Ryle, John (27 July 2001).
"At play in the bush of ghosts"
.
Times Literary Supplement
. Archived from the original on 30 January 2021 – via www.richardwebster.net.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (
link
)
- ^
O'Rourke, Meghan (30 January 2007).
"Defending Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski"
.
Slate
.
- ^
Shafer, Jack (25 January 2007).
"The lies of Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski?or, if you prefer, the "magical realism" of the now-departed master"
.
Slate
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
John Ryle (2001), "At play in the bush of ghosts" originally published as the "Tales of Mythical Africa" by the
Times Literary Supplement
, 27 July 2001. Review of: Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski,
The Shadow of the Sun
, translated by Klara Glowczewska, 336 pp,
Penguin Books
, 2001. See:
Reprint of the review in full.
[usurped]
- ^
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu ?l?skiego (2012),
Beata Nowacka. About the author.
- ^
Wydawnictwo Znak (7 November 2008),
Zygmunt Zi?tek. About the author.
- ^
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski. Biografia pisarza Beata Nowacka, Zygmunt Zi?tek
.
Znak
. 10 November 2008
. Retrieved
3 January
2014
.
- ^
Kapu?ci?ski, Ryszard (2009).
Opere
(in Italian). Mondadori.
ISBN
9788804557357
. Retrieved
21 July
2014
.
- ^
"Classics to enjoy: Meridiani"
.
Mondadori.com
. Mondadori. Archived from
the original
on 11 August 2014
. Retrieved
21 July
2014
.
- ^
Artur Domosławski (2010),
Kapu?ci?ski non-fiction
, Wydawnictwo
?wiat ksi??ki
, Warszawa, Hardcover,
ISBN
978-83-247-1906-8
, e-book:
ISBN
978-83-247-1981-5
.
?wiat Ksi??ki
is an imprint of
Bertelsmann
.
- ^
a
b
Luke Harding (2 March 2010),
Poland's ace reporter Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski accused of fiction-writing.
The Guardian.com.
- ^
Artur Domoslawski (2012),
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski: A Life.
Verso Books.
ISBN
1844679187
, 464 pages. Google Books.
- ^
"Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski was a great story-teller, not a liar | Neal Ascherson"
.
TheGuardian.com
. 3 March 2010.
- ^
Timothy Garton Ash (10 March 2010),
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski. Opinion. Bearing witness is a sacred trust.
The Guardian.com.
- ^
"Fact and fiction"
.
Financial Times
. 24 August 2012.
Archived
from the original on 10 December 2022.
- ^
"Publikacje"
(in Polish).
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu ?l?skiego
. 14 January 2013
. Retrieved
3 January
2014
.
- ^
An announcement by the publisher ?wiat Ksi??ki was published on 18 October 2013, in "Gazeta Wyborcza" newspaper. It reads (in Polish): Zarz?d Społki ?wiat Ksi??ki Sp z o.o. wyra?a ubolewanie z powodu naruszenia dobr osobistych Pani Alicji Kapu?ci?skiej i Pani Rene Maisner, to jest prawa do prywatno?ci, dobrego imienia i godno?ci oraz kultu po zmarłym Ryszardzie Kapu?ci?skim poprzez wydawanie i rozpowszechnianie ksi??ki "Kapu?ci?ski non-fiction" zawieraj?ce nieprawdziwe informacje, odno?nie Pani Alicji Kapu?ci?skiej i Pani Rene Maisner.
- ^
We know the verdict on the biography of Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski Polish Radio SA 27 May 2015
- ^
http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/218696,Kapuscinski-daughter-loses-case-against-her-fathers-biographer-
Kapuscinski-daughter-loses-case-against-her-fathers-biographer
- ^
Bilingual edition; tr. Michael Jacobs;
Krakow
, Fundacja Judaica/Centrum Kultury ?ydowskiej, 2002. The 2001 Aleksander and Alicja Hertz Annual Memorial Lecture, No. 3.
ISBN
83-916293-1-7
.
- ^
"Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski"
. Random House
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Bilingual edition; tr. Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand and William Brand;
Krakow
, Towarzystwo Autorow i Wydawcow Prac Naukowych Universitas, 2005.
ISBN
83-242-0412-1
.
- ^
Encountering the Other: The Challenge for the Twenty-first Century by Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski. The opening lecture to the summer session at Jagiellonian University, in Krakow
http://www.digitalnpq.org/articles/nobel/8/08-05-2005/ryszard_kapuscinski
- ^
I Wrote Stone: The Selected Poetry of Ryszard Kapuscinski
. Biblioasis. 2007
. Retrieved
28 June
2018
.
- ^
Publisher's listing on Verso Books of London
. Versobooks.com. 2018.
ISBN
9781786635969
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"My Morning Walk by Ryszard Kapuscinski"
. Culture.pl
. Retrieved
16 January
2014
.
- ^
Kapuscinski, Ryszard (17 February 2007).
"Paseo matutino by Ryszard Kapuscinski"
.
El Pais
. Retrieved
16 January
2014
.
- ^
Kapu?ci?ski, Ryszard (2012).
Wiersze zebrane/Collected Poems
(in Polish and English). UMCS and Polish-Canadian Publishing Fund. p. 242.
ISBN
97883-7784-164-8
. Retrieved
28 June
2018
.
- ^
Published together with:
Jarosław Mikołajewski
,
Sentymentalny portret Ryszarda Kapu?ci?skiego
, [with] Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski,
Zapiski szpitalne
; foreword by A. Kapu?ci?ska (
Krakow
, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2008);
ISBN
978-83-08-04263-2
.
- ^
Kapu?ci?ski's quotes (in Polish) from the book "Kto tu wpu?cił dziennikarzy"
http://kapuscinski.info/kto-tu-wpuscil-dziennikarzy.html
- ^
"Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski. Photobiography"
. VEDA. 2013
. Retrieved
15 October
2014
.
- ^
Kusiba, Marek (2018).
Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski z daleka i z bliska
. Warsaw: Znak
. Retrieved
2 July
2018
.
- ^
See a film
L'Afrique vue par Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
(13:56)
- ^
The film is attached as a DVD with the book
Pisanie. Z Ryszardem Kapu?ci?skim rozmawia Marek Miller
, published in Poland in 2012
- ^
"A Poet on the Front Line"
. Retrieved
21 July
2014
.
- ^
Pfeiffer, Gabrielle.
"A Poet on the Frontline"
. Retrieved
21 July
2014
.
- ^
"L'Afrique vue par Ryszard Kapuscinski"
.
Arte
(in French). Archived from
the original
on 2 April 2015
. Retrieved
27 March
2015
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Hochschild, Adam
(3 November 1994). "Magic journalism".
The New York Review of Books
.
41
(18): 13?15.
Review of
Imperium
.
- Manne, Robert
(December 1995). "A conversation with Ryszard Kapuscinski".
Quadrant
.
39
(12): 40?43.
External links
[
edit
]
- John May interviews Kapuscinski
, London, 9 August 1984
- John May interviews Kapuscinski
, London, 3 April 1986
- BBC Arena: Kapu?ci?ski
, 1988
- 92Y/The Paris Review Interview Series: Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
, New York, 9 December 1991
- VPRO
, an autobiographical interview, 1999
- Confronting the Worst: Writing and Catastrophe
, New York,
New York Public Library
, 16 April 2005
- Interview with Kapuscinski:
Writing About Suffering
, Journal of the International Institute, November 1997
- Keynote speech,
Herodotus and the Art of Noticing
, during the inaugural ceremony for the Lettre Ulysses Awards, 2003
- Letras Libres
interview with Kapuscinski in Spanish
- Documentary movie:
A Poet on the Frontline: The Reportage of Ryszard Kapuscinski
, 2004
- Review of
Travels with Herodotus
- InfoPoland: Kapu?ci?ski links
- Press response in UK, US and Canada to Kapuscinski's death
- Works by or about Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
at
Internet Archive
- Open Library.
Works by Kapuscinski
- Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski
at culture.pl
- Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski Award for literary reportage
- Kapu?ci?ski and Terzani
- Kapuscinski Development Lectures series kapuscinskilectures.eu
- kapuscinski.info
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