Most Popular Books by Ryszard Kapuscinski

From the renowned journalist comes this intimate account of his years in the field, traveling for the first time beyond the Iron Curtain to India, China, Ethiopia, and other exotic locales. In the 1950s, Ryszard Kapuscinski finished university in Poland and became a foreign correspondent, hoping to go abroad – perhaps to Czechoslovakia. Instead, he was sent to India – the first stop on a decades-long tour of the world that took Kapuscinski from Iran to El Salvador, from Angola to Armenia. Revisiting his memories of traveling the globe with a copy of Herodotus'' Histories in tow, Kapuscinski describes his awakening to the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of new environments, and how the words of the Greek historiographer helped shape his own view of an increasingly globalized world. Written with supreme eloquence and a constant eye to the global undercurrents that have shaped the last half-century, Travels with Herodotus is an exceptional chronicle of one man''s journey across continents.

In 1975, Angola was tumbling into pandemonium; everyone who could was packing crates, desperate to abandon the beleaguered colony. With his trademark bravura, Ryszard Kapuscinski went the other way, begging his was from Lisbon and comfort to Luanda—once famed as Africa''s Rio de Janeiro—and chaos.Angola, a slave colony later given over to mining and plantations, was a promised land for generations of poor Portuguese. It had belonged to Portugal since before there were English-speakers in North America. After the collapse of the fascist dictatorship in Portugal in 1974, Angola was brusquely cut loose, spurring the catastrophe of a still-ongoing civil war. Kapuscinski plunged right into the middle of the drama, driving past thousands of haphazardly placed check-points, where using the wrong shibboleth was a matter of life and death; recording his imporessions of the young soldiers—from Cuba, Angola, South Africa, Portugal—fighting a nebulous war with global repercussions; and examining the peculiar brutality of a country surprised and divided by its newfound freedom.Translated from the Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand.

The best of Kapuscinski''s published poems, offered for the first time in English.

"Insightful and important.... A readable, timely and valuable contribution to the understanding of the revolutionary forces at work in Iran.... The reader almost becomes a participant." —The New York Times Book Review In Shah of Shahs Kapuscinski brings a mythographer''s perspective and a novelist''s virtuosity to bear on the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, one of the most infamous of the United States'' client-dictators, who resolved to transform his country into "a second America in a generation," only to be toppled virtually overnight. From his vantage point at the break-up of the old regime, Kapuscinski gives us a compelling history of conspiracy, repression, fanatacism, and revolution. Translated from the Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand.

In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Poland''s state newspaper. From the early days of independence in Ghana to the ongoing ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Kapuscinski has crisscrossed vast distances pursuing the swift, and often violent, events that followed liberation. Kapuscinski hitchhikes with caravans, wanders the Sahara with nomads, and lives in the poverty-stricken slums of Nigeria. He wrestles a king cobra to the death and suffers through a bout of malaria. What emerges is an extraordinary depiction of Africa--not as a group of nations or geographic locations--but as a vibrant and frequently joyous montage of peoples, cultures, and encounters. Kapuscinski''s trenchant observations, wry analysis and overwhelming humanity paint a remarkable portrait of the continent and its people. His unorthodox approach and profound respect for the people he meets challenge conventional understandings of the modern problems faced by Africa at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Introduction by Neal Ascherson In our globalised but increasingly polarised age, Kapuscinski shows how the Other remains one of the most compelling ideas of our times. In this reflection on a lifetime of travel, the renown travel writer takes a fresh look at the Western idea of the Other: the non-European or non-American. Looking at this concept through the lens of his own encounters in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Kapuscinski traces how the West has understood the Other from classical times to colonialism, from the Age of Enlightenment to the postmodern global village.

This account of the rise and fall of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie is "an unforgettable, fiercely comic, and finally compassionate book" (Salman Rushdie, Man Booker Prize–winning author). After Haile Selassie was deposed in 1974, Ryszard Kapuściński—Poland''s top foreign correspondent—went to Ethiopia to piece together a firsthand account of how the emperor governed his country, and why he finally fell from power. At great risk to himself, Kapuściński interviewed members of the imperial circle who had gone into hiding. The result is this remarkable book, in which Selassie''s servants and closest associates share accounts—humorous, frightening, sad, grotesque—of a man living amidst nearly unimaginable pomp and luxury while his people teetered between hunger and starvation. It is a classic portrait of authoritarianism, and a fascinating story of a forty-four-year reign that ended with a coup d''état in 1974.

''A peculiar genius with no modern equivalent, except possibly Kafka'' - Jonathan Miller Regarded as a central part of Kapuscinski''s work, these vivid portraits of life in the depths of Poland embody the young writer''s mastery of literary reportage When the great Ryszard Kapuscinski was a young journalist in the early 1960s, he was sent to the farthest reaches of his native Poland between foreign assignments. The resulting pieces brought together in this new collection, nearly all of which are translated into English for the first time, reveal a place just as strange as the distant lands he visited. From forgotten villages to collective farms, Kapuscinski explores a Poland that is post-Stalinist but still Communist; a country on the edge of modernity. He encounters those for whom the promises of rising living standards never worked out as planned, those who would have been misfits under any political system, those tied to the land and those dreaming of escape.

Part diary and part reportage, The Soccer War is a remarkable chronicle of war in the late twentieth century. Between 1958 and 1980, working primarily for the Polish Press Agency, Kapuscinski covered twenty-seven revolutions and coups in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Here, with characteristic cogency and emotional immediacy, he recounts the stories behind his official press dispatches—searing firsthand accounts of the frightening, grotesque, and comically absurd aspects of life during war. The Soccer War is a singular work of journalism.

''Like rotting stakes in a forest clearing'' The great journalist of conflict in the Third World finds an even stranger and more exotic society in his own home of post-War Poland Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York''s underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

''The most passionate, engaging and historically profound account of the Soviet empire that I have read.'' - Michael Ignatieff

A Vintage Shorts Travel Selection As British rule came to an end in Ghana, Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski journeyed to the country to witness the birth of a new republic. Here Kapuscinski shares stories and insights about the time he spent crisscrossing Ghana in 1957. From meeting with the charismatic Kofi Baako, then Minister of Education and Information, to discussing witchcraft and clan structures with a fellow reporter in Kumasi, Kapuscinski investigates what it means to be Ghanaian at a time of immense change and upheaval. Rich with anecdotes and honesty, selection from his travelogue The Shadow of the Sun is a remarkable firsthand account into the sights and sounds of Ghana. An eBook short.

Soon after the death of Che Guevara, the revolutionary Argentinean artist Carlos Alonso painted a picture that represented the figure of Christ with a gun on his shoulder. This image soon became an artistic symbol of the revolutionary fighter, the guerrilla who, rifle in hand, combats violence and the arbitrary nature of dictatorship.

El autor nos ofrece un fascinante relato de recuerdos y exploraciones de la Unión Soviética absolutamente imprescindible, un fascinante reportaje polifónico, uno de los grandes libros de la década. Kapuscinski realizó entre 1989 y 1991 un largo viaje por los vastos territorios de la Unión Soviética. En esos años decisivos, cuando el imperio presentaba ya síntomas de derrumbe, este implacable e incisivo cronista de su siglo visitó quince repúblicas y habló con cientos de ciudadanos acerca de las extraordinarias experiencias que les había tocado en suerte vivir, y el terror del cual estaban saliendo. Este libro es el producto de una carrera contra el tiempo para atrapar la memoria de los anónimos protagonistas de la Historia antes de que los terribles y pasmosos acontecimientos de esos años entren para siempre en el pasado.

Un libro fascinante en torno a un personaje de excepción: el emperador Haile Selassie de Etiopía, el Rey de Reyes, el León de Judá, el Elegido de Dios, el Muy Altísimo Señor, Su Más Sublime Majestad, descendiente directo de Salomón, que gobernó su país como monarca absoluto durante casi cincuenta años, hasta que en 1974 fue derrocado por un Consejo Revolucionario. Ryszard Kapuscinski viajó a Etiopía, se sumergió en un país azotado por una confusa guerra civil y, cautelosamente, superando desconfianzas y temores, logró entrevistar a los antiguos dignatarios de la corte imperial, así como a los servidores personales del Emperador, en su día dedicados a los más variopintos e insólitos menesteres. Los relatos orales que forman este libro son ora sobrecogedores, ora tragicómicos, en ocasiones increíbles y siempre extraordinariamente apasionantes, componiendo el rompecabezas de una Etiopía más próxima a una espeluznante pesadilla que al sueño de las Mil y una noches en el que Selassie creía vivir. El Emperador, señor feudal dueño de vidas y haciendas, de conciencias y sentimientos, se nos presenta como un misterio que cada cual resolverá: ¿un payaso esperpéntico?, ¿un rey paternal, bondadoso y amante de su pueblo, en ocasiones severo pero siempre justo?, ¿un demente voluntariamente ignorante del mundo que le rodea, del hambre y la corrupción, y necesitado de la más ciega lealtad? Se ha dicho que este libro puede leerse simultáneamente como una crónica de la realidad en Etiopía, una alegoría de la situación en Polonia, una parábola sobre la autocracia y, last but not least, como literatura del más alto rango: sutil, elegante, irónica, absorbente. «Se lee como una mezcla del Ubú rey, de Jarry, y de los despachos de prensa. Totalmente surrealista y totalmente sobrio» (Leon Wieseltein). «Extraordinario. Mi libro favorito del año» (Salman Rushdie).

Una obra capital del autor, sobre cómo y por qué triunfó la revolución islámica en Irán. Irán, 1980: los revolucionarios han tomado el poder. En un hotel desierto de Teherán, Ryszard Kapuściński intenta –a partir de notas, cintas magnetofónicas, fotos, materiales que ha acumulado desde que está en el país– comprender la causa de la caída del Sha. ¿Cuál ha sido la evolución del país desde finales del siglo XIX hasta la revolución islámica? ¿Cuáles fueron los orígenes del movimiento chiíta? ¿Cómo ha logrado Jomeini imponerse? ¿Qué puede éste ofrecer contra la promesa del Sha de «crear una segunda Norteamérica en una generación»? ¿Qué es lo que la gente espera de la revolución y qué es lo que realmente obtiene? ¿Cuál es la situación de Irán después de tanta y tanta violencia? El autor recompone el puzzle y, diseccionando el proceso de esta revolución, nos desvela las fuerzas que sostienen un poder y las fuerzas que lo minan; en una luminosa síntesis nos ofrece un retrato, de características únicas, del estado psicológico de un país revolucionario. Y, a partir del ejemplo iraní, nos brinda una reflexión lúcida, colorida y penetrante sobre los mecanismos de la historia y del poder.

La revolució dels clavells va suposar el final del colonialisme portuguès i va fixar la proclamació de la independència d''Angola l''any 1975. Tres mesos abans, Kapuściński s''instal·la a Luanda, des d''on assisteix a l''èxode blanc: observa com van abandonant el país metges i enginyers, bombers i policies, corresponsals estrangers i enviats especials... Quan l''últim avió és a punt d''aixecar el vol Kapuściński pren la decisió de quedar-se a Angola fins a la data assenyalada. I no perquè sigui un heroi o un boig, sinó perquè la seva curiositat innata i el desig irrenunciable de veure les coses amb els seus propis ulls per poder explicar la veritat tenen més força que la por de morir deshidratat o metrallat.

Escrit des de la perspectiva de mitjan de segle, Viatges amb Heròdot és una obra de difícil classificació. Mescla de reportatge, estudi etnogràfic i antropològic, llibre de viatges pel temps i la història, Viatges amb Heròdot és, sobretot, un homenatge a l‘Heròdot protoreporter i a la qualitat de la seva prosa, una reivindicació del "primer globalista" descobridor d''una cosa tan fonamental com que els móns són molts i que cada un és únic. Sorprenent i imprevisible, potser el més original dels seus textos, els Viatges amb Heròdot és un híbrid de reflexions sobre els mecanismes de poder, els sistemes polítics i l''organització social, allò material i tangible davant d''allò espiritual i màgic, el crim i el càstig, i un seguit de magnífiques històries de no-ficció.