The Librarians Speak

The Paris Review has published some work by Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, who died last year. The essay (not available online) covers more of Kapuscinski’s travels through Africa, a familiar subject to those who have read his books. What’s notable is that this issue also includes some of Kapuscinski’s photography, which nicely augments his writing – though those who have read Kapuscinski’s work know that he is more than able to conjure up images with his writing.It’s a good time for Kapuscinski fans because in addition to The Paris Review essay, a new book by Kapuscinski is on the way. I noted Travels with Herodetus at the end of my “most anticipated books of the year” post, but there were few details available at the time. Now we have a cover (as you can see), as well as the book’s description, which tells us that Kapuscinski has written about his years as a young reporter.From the master of literary reportage whose acclaimed books include Shah of Shahs, The Emperor, and The Shadow of the Sun, an intimate account of his first youthful forays beyond the Iron Curtain.Just out of university in 1955, Kapuscinski told his editor that he’d like to go abroad. Dreaming no farther than Czechoslovakia, the young reporter found himself sent to India. Wide-eyed and captivated, he would discover in those days his life’s work – to understand and describe the world in its remotest reaches, in all its multiplicity. From the rituals of sunrise at Persepolis to the incongruity of Louis Armstrong performing before a stone-faced crowd in Khartoum, Kapuscinski gives us the non-Western world as he first saw it, through still-virginal Western eyes.The companion on his travels: a volume of Herodotus, a gift from his first boss. Whether in China, Poland, Iran, or the Congo, it was the “father of history” – and, as Kapuscinski would realize, of globalism – who helped the young correspondent to make sense of events, to find the story where it did not obviously exist. It is this great forerunner’s spirit – both supremely worldly and innately Occidental – that would continue to whet Kapuscinski’s ravenous appetite for discovering the broader world and that has made him our own indispensable companion on any leg of that perpetual journey.Bonus Link: Google video has Kapuscinski’s appearance in 2000 on The Charlie Rose Show. (You may need to turn the volume all the way up to hear it.)