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Sad news indeed, though given his recklessness I guess he was lucky to live that long. He's a bit of a hero of mine: I reread most of his books quite recently: Imperium is one of those astounding books. Best A On 1/25/07, Halvard Johnson <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > January 24, 2007 > > Ryszard Kapuscinski, Polish Writer of Shimmering Allegories and News, > Dies at 74 > > By MICHAEL T. KAUFMAN > 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. > > "It's not that the story is not getting expressed" in ordinary news > reports, he said in an interview. "It's what surrounds the story. The > climate, the atmosphere of the street, the feeling of the people, the > gossip of the town; the smell; the thousands and thousands of > elements that are part of the events you read about in 600 words of > your morning paper." > > From the 1970s on, these articles appeared in a series of books that > quickly made Mr. Kapuscinski Poland's best-known foreign > correspondent. They later drew international attention in > translation. The books included "The Soccer War," which dealt with > Latin American conflicts; "Another Day of Life," about Angola's civil > war; "Shah of Shahs," about the rise and fall of Iran's last monarch; > and "Imperium," an account of his travels through Russia and its > neighbors after the collapse of the Soviet Union. > > The book that introduced Mr. Kapuscinski to readers and critics > beyond Poland was a slim one, ostensibly about Ethiopia, which he > wrote in 1978 and which appeared in English five years later under > the title "The Emperor." > > Subtitled "Downfall of an Autocrat" (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich), the > book on one level portrayed the lapsed life of Haile Selassie's > imperial court by citing the recollections of palace servants, like > the man responsible for cleaning the shoes of visiting dignitaries. > > A number of critics noted that despite the book's documentary form, > it provided an allegory of absolutist power everywhere. Writing in > The New Yorker, John Updike said the book emphasized "the inevitable > tendency of a despot, be he king, ward boss, or dictator, to prefer > loyalty to ability in his subordinates, and to seek safety in > stagnation." > > His fame growing, Mr. Kapuscinski began writing for The New Yorker, > The New York Times Magazine and the British journal Granta. > > Though each of Mr. Kapuscinski's books was distinct, they all shared > a sense of shimmering reality. There was, for instance, his account > of the departure of Portuguese settlers from Angola as independence > and civil war settled on the country. He described how everything of > value, from cars to refrigerators, was leaping into boxes and > floating off to Europe. > > In preparing these articles he never took notes and used memory to > stimulate his poetic imagination. In "Imperium," he evoked the wintry > cold of the old Soviet penal colonies by quoting a schoolgirl who > said she could tell who had passed by her house by the shape of the > tunnels they had left in the crystallized air. > > Mr. Kapuscinski, the son of schoolteachers, was born March 4, 1932, > in Pinsk, a city now in Belarus. In an interview in Granta in 1987, > he remembered Pinsk as a polyglot city of Jews, Poles, Russians, > Belarussians, Ukrainians and Armenians, all of whom were called > Poleshuks. > > "They were a people without a nation and without, therefore, a > national identity," he said. That quality, along with the poverty of > Pinsk, inspired his empathy for the third world. > > "I have always rediscovered my home, rediscovered Pinsk, in Africa, > in Asia, in Latin America," he said. > > Mr. Kapuscinski was in elementary school when the Nazis marched into > western Poland and the Soviets took the eastern part in 1939 at the > outset of World War II. His family eventually made its way to Warsaw, > where Mr. Kapuscinski's father fought with resistance groups. > > Mr. Kapuscinski received a master's degree in history from the > University of Warsaw. On graduation he joined the journal Sztandar > Mlodych, The Flag of Youth, a Communist publication, and quickly > became embroiled in the upheavals of 1956, when hard-line Stalinists > were being challenged within the party. > > Mr. Kapuscinski wrote an article describing the misery and despair of > steel workers at a new steel plant outside of Krakow that the party > bosses had extolled as a showpiece of proletarian culture. > > The article provoked such an attack from the hard-liners that Mr. > Kapuscinski was fired and forced into hiding. After party reformers > later prevailed, however, the young journalist's findings were > confirmed by a blue-ribbon task force, and he was awarded Poland's > Golden Cross of Merit for the same article that had gotten him into > trouble. > > In 1962, PAP, the news agency, appointed him its only correspondent > in the third world. He came to know Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, Ben > Bella in Algeria, Che Guevara in Cuba and Idi Amin in Uganda. He > covered the bloody uprising on Zanzibar in 1964 and the war between > El Salvador and Honduras in 1970. He was in southern Angola in 1975 > when South African forces invaded. > > He would travel for months at a time and then return to the two-room > apartment in Warsaw that he shared with his wife, Alicja Mielczarek, > a pediatrician. His daughter, Zofia, emigrated to Vancouver, British > Columbia, in the 1970s. There was no immediate information on his > survivors. > > In 1981, after he had committed himself to the Solidarity trade union > movement, the government of Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski stripped him of > his journalistic credentials. He then began working with underground > publishers, contributing poems and supporting the dissident culture. > > Eventually, as his reputation abroad grew, foreign royalties and > commissions enabled him to move to his own house in central Warsaw. > > With the collapse of the Soviet Union, he traveled to Moscow, > Siberia, Georgia and Armenia, observing life there and recording the > ravages of the Soviet era. Those travels yielded "Imperium," > published in the United States by Knopf in 1994. > > "There is, I admit, a certain egoism, in what I write," he once said, > "always complaining about the heat or the hunger or the pain I feel. > But it is terribly important to have what I write authenticated by > its being lived. You could call it, I suppose, personal reportage, > because the author is always present. I sometimes call it literature > by foot." > > > "A paranoid is someone who knows a little > of what's going on." > --William S. Burroughs > Halvard Johnson > ================ > [log in to unmask] > [log in to unmask] > http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard > http://entropyandme.blogspot.com > http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com > http://www.hamiltonstone.org > -- Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com