It's sad to get news from dustjackets. Last night at Moe's I found the latest book by Ryszard Kapuscinski, perhaps my favourite contemporary writer, and grabbed it, but no sooner had i opened it than i learned he died in 2007. I had always somehow imagined i would run into him somewhere and have a great conversation with him. Anyway I am tearing through it, recklessly.

It's called TRAVELS WITH HERODOTUS and covers familiar terrain, that is in terms of his work, stories you may have caught in GRANTA or the NEW YORKER about his early days as a reporter. He was the only Foreign Correspondent for the Polish Press Agency so was constantly being sent to Iran, Congo, China, or where-ever there was a revolution or coup going on. He has a wonderful style of writing, very poetic for a journalist, but modest and full of keen observation.

Here he is in Calcutta in the early 1950s:

I was sitting in a hotel room reading Herodotus when through the window I heard the wailing of sirens. I ran outside. Ambulances went screeching by, people were running into doorways to shelter, a group of policemen burst out from around a corner, thrashing the fleeing pedestrians with long sticks. One could smell the odor of gas and of something burning. I tried to find out what was going on. A man sprinting by with a stone in his hand yelled, "Language war!" and rushed on. Language war! I did not know the details but had been made aware earlier that linguistic conflicts could assume violent and bloody forms in this country: demonstrations, street clashes, murders, even acts of self-immolation.

--It's about the fact he doesn't speak english but the language war in Calcutta had a real resonance for me!

RK's shelf is quite modest but every book is rewarding:
Another Day of Life (about the civil war in Angola: Cuban soldiers defend Shell oil platforms from CIA-funded South African mercenaries!)
Shah of Shahs (about the fall of the Shah of Iran)
The Emperor (scenes of life at the court of Haile Selassie)
The Soccer War (a collection of shorter pieces: the title is about an actual war that erupted between Honduras and El Salvador after a world cup qualifying game (oh, today's result: Brazil 3 Argentina 0, in the Copa de America final, included an own goal by an Argie defender; i bet his days are numbered, particularly since it looked like he tried to score an own goal about two minutes earlier!)
Imperium (incredible, magisterial study of the break-up of the Soviet Union, with some passages worthy of Dickens!)
The Shadow of the Sun (RK covered 27 revolutions and coups in Africa, he was even sentenced to death by firing squad. Gripping stuff!)


Alastair