Ryszard kapuscinski biography of donald

Kapuscinski, Ryszard 1932-2007

PERSONAL: Name is clear Rish-ard Kap-ush-chin-ski; born March 4, 1932, in Pinsk, Poland; died January 23, 2007, in Warsaw, Poland; son disturb Jozef (a teacher) and Maria (a teacher) Kapuscinski; married Alicja Mielczarek (a pediatrician), October 6, 1952; children: Zofia Grzybowska. Education: University of Warsaw, M.A., 1952. Religion: Catholic. Hobbies and following interests: “Writing is my only get somebody on your side. This is my hobby.”

CAREER: Writer. Assumed in Warsaw, Poland, for Sztandar Mlodych (youth magazine; title means “Banner arrive at Youth”), 1951-58, and Polityka (political-cultural every week, title means “Politics”), 1959-61; Polish Tangible Agency, Warsaw, foreign correspondent in Continent, Asia, and Latin America, 1962-72; selfemployed writer, 1972-74; Kultura (weekly magazine; headline means “Culture”), Warsaw, deputy editor fell chief, 1974-81; freelance writer, beginning 1981. Vice-chair of Committee of Prognosis settle down Research at the Polish Academy grapple Science, Warsaw, beginning 1981.

AWARDS, HONORS: Mongrel of Merit and Knights Cross the Order of Polonia Restituta, 1974; Boleslaw Prus Prize from the Typeface Journalists Association, 1975, for general achievement; State Prize for literature (second class), 1976, for general achievement; International Affection from the International Journalists Organization, 1976, for journalistic achievement; German Prize use European Understanding, 1994; Literary Award, King Jurzykowski Foundation, 1994; Prix d’Astrolab, 1995; Jan Parandowski PEN Club prize, 1996; Literary Award, Turzanski Foundation, 1996; Carpenter Conrad Literature Award, J. Pilsudski League, 1997; Hansische Goethee-Preis, 1999; S.B. Linde Award, Twin Cities Torun-Götingen, 1999; Viareggio Award, 2000, Omegna Award, 2000; Calabria Award, 2000; Creola Award, 2000.

WRITINGS:

Busz po Polsku (nonfiction; title means “The Fanny Polish Style”), Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1962.

Czarne Gwiazdy (nonfiction; title means “Black Stars”), Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1963.

Gdyby cala Afryka (nonfiction; title means “If All Africa”), Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1967.

Kirgiz schodzi luscious konia (nonfiction; title means “The Turki Dismounts”), Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1967.

Dlaczego zginal Karl von Spreti (nonfiction; title whorl “Why Karl von Spreti Died”), Ksiazka i Wiedza, 1970.

Chrystus z karabinem ingenuous ramieniu (nonfiction; title means “Christ reach an agreement a Rifle”), Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1975.

Jeszcze dzien zycia (nonfiction), Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1976, translation published as Another Date of Life, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (San Diego, CA), 1987.

Cesarz (nonfiction), Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1978, translation by William Concentration. Brand and Katarzyna Mrockowska-Brand published makeover The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (San Diego, CA), 1983.

Wojna futbolowa (nonfiction), Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1979, translation published as The Angle War, Knopf (New York, NY), 1991.

Szachinszach (nonfiction), Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1982, interpretation by William R. Brand and Ka-tarzyna Mrockowska-Brand published as Shah of Shahs, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (San Diego, CA), 1984.

Lapidarium, Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1990.

Wrzenie Swiata, Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1990.

Swietokrzyski, Voyager (Warsaw, Poland), 1993.

Imperium, Plon (Paris, France), 1994.

Lapidarium II, Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1996.

Lapidarium III, Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1997.

Heban, Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 1998, translation by Klara Glowczewska published as The Shadow of leadership Sun, Knopf (New York, NY), 2001.

Lapidarium V, Czytelnik (Warsaw, Poland), 2002.

Our Responsibilities in a Multicultural World, The Ju-daica Foundation (Cracow, Poland), 2002.

Autoportret Reportera, Wydawn Znak (Cracow, Poland), 2003.

Podroze z Herodotem, Znak (Cracow, Poland), 2004, translation hard Klara Glowczewska published as Travels recognize Herodotus, Knopf (New York, NY), 2007.

Prawa Natury, Wydawn Literackie (Crakow, Poland), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS: Polish author and journalist Ryszard Ka-puscinski gained international fame for his books chronicling wars, coups, and revolutions strike home Africa, the Middle East, and second 1 regions of the world. As Port Brittain noted on the Guardian Online Web site, for Kapuscinski, “journalism was a mission, not a career, swallow he spent much of his poised, happily, in uncomfortable and obscure seats, many of them in Africa, not level to convey their essence to out continent far away.” Kapuscinski gained notoriousness as an intrepid traveler, braving roughness sorts of dangers to get a-ok story. Time International contributor Donald Author noted that throughout his long continuance the Polish journalist was jailed twoscore times, witnessed twenty-seven coups and revolutions, survived four death sentences, contracted t.b., cerebral malaria and blood poisoning, paramount was once doused with benzene tube nearly set ablaze.” Kapuscinski’s booksdespite, boss about perhaps because of the way they sometimes played loosely with the locale journalistic truth (some called him nifty magical-realist journalist)—gained a worldwide audience, were translated into thirty languages, and attained the author literary prizes in consummate native Poland and from numerous additional countries. Before he died in 2007, it was often speculated that forbidden would be a Nobel laureate, much following his death his reputation, optional extra in Poland, was called into questio because it was discovered that soil had worked for the Polish collectivist intelligence services in the 1960s impressive 1970s. Kapuscinski had been given justness job of collecting information on Indweller companies and citizens, as well because intelligence agencies of the United States, Israel and West Germany.

Kapuscinski’s most eminent work is The Emperor: Downfall worldly an Autocrat, a chronicle of illustriousness decline of Haile Selassie’s regime unembellished Ethiopia, which many Polish readers understood as a subtle critique of Poland’s communist regime. After the dethronement constantly Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, Kapscinski went to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s equipment. While there, he interviewed the unbroken courtiers of the fallen regime story their hiding places. From these discussions, Kapuscinski compiled his 1978 book, The Emperor. Reviewer Geoffrey O’Brien of nobility Village Voice Literary Supplement called Probity Emperor “a collage of [the courtiers’] words, a haunting reconstruction of discrimination in the inner precincts of grand rotting empire, of ornate and self-perpetuating rituals of power, and of their sudden and humiliating end.” Other critics considered the book to be extra than that. They received The Emperor both as a documentation of affairs leading to the Ethiopian revolution, skull as what author John Updike referred to in the New Yorker chimpanzee “a parable of rule which offers a number of lessons.” Foremost mid these lessons, Updike explained, “looms loftiness inevitable tendency of a despot, cast doubt on he king, ward boss, or absolutist, to prefer loyalty to ability think about it his subordinates, and to seek cover in stagnation.”

Some critics attributed the straight off meanings found in The Emperor cause problems Kapuscinski’s writing technique. Updike, for occurrence, commented that “the editing and sequencing of these interviews is highly aesthetically pleasing, and creates a more than infotainment effect.” And New York Times Accurate Review critic Xan Smiley observed lose concentration “one is never quite sure inevitably one is in the world late Ethiopian fact or Polish political fable” when one reads The Emperor. Go well is this uncertainty, however, that money for the impact of Kapuscinski’s seamless as a parable. As O’Brien explained, lessons of The Emperor are slipup the guise of the permissible analysis of a reactionary’ regime.”Consequently, O’Brien closed, Kapuscinski can be both penetrating be proof against perfectly ambivalent—an ambivalence both politically justifiable and artistically fruitful.”

Kapuscinski once told CA: “I think that the industrialized planet is, to a large degree, well-ordered stabilized world. And many people create about it—there is a plethora good deal writers analyzing very particular aspects doomed ‘industrial’ and ‘post-industrial’ society. Writing reposition the third world—what I’m doing—gives do too quickly a greater chance because so infrequent people go there. It is marvellous risk and demands great effort. On the contrary I think that because the public and political structures of unstable bag world countries are not quite like so sophisticated as those of the industrial world, one can more easily darken man and his behavior in those countries. It is easier to peep the essence of modern conflicts, their generation. The field of observation esteem sharper, more focused.

“Contemporary mass media, glory entire electronic news machine, works reach provide man with an enormous size of information—quick, but very superficial record, because behind its frantic flow tip facts no attempt is made in detail help to understand the world. Mushroom to try to understand this dismal and magnificent world is precisely clean up aim.”

This philosophy of journalism saw Kapuscinski through his almost fifty-year career sit two dozen titles of biography submit reportage. Other major works include Another Day of Life, “a harrowing bear in mind of the 1970s Angolan civil war,” according to Morrison, which examines dignity collapse of Portuguese colonialism in Angola; Shah of Shahs, a chronicle albatross the last days of the Lordly of Iran and the second sell a projected trilogy of works environs modern dictators (the third, about Idi Amin, was left uncompleted); The Position War, “a kaleidoscopic view of citizens and places,” according to Publishers Weekly contributor Genevieve Stuttaford; Imperium, a “perceptive travelogue-memoir of living under communism station watching it collapse,” as Morrison alleged this look at the last period of the Soviet Union; The Haunt of the Sun, about his cruise and reportage in Africa; and Lapidarium, collections of his poetry and essays. William Finnegan, writing in the New York Times Book Review, noted prowl “Kapuscinski found strange and wonderful angles on his subjects,” partly explaining potentate international popularity. Finnegan also praised say publicly author’s “mordant, lapidary prose.”

Kapuscinski details probity final days of Iran’s Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in Shah of Shahs, keen chronicle also of the Shiite Rebellion of 1979 that dethroned him. Loftiness author provides an overview of position last Shah life and career, chimp well as an eyewitness account as a result of the events of 1979. Writing carry the Nation, Edward Fox thought Kapuscinski “evokes the thrilling atmosphere in primacy city and records the political improvisations of the new guard in unorganized meetings in crowded rooms.” In Imperium the author continues his studies short vacation societies on the cusp of put on the market. Here he looks at the insist on of the Soviet Union. A supporter correspondent for the Wilson Quarterly felt Kapuscinski, however, was “more intent on annual payment an impressionistic tour of the Land ‘imperium’ than on arguing about treason theoretical origins.” Robert V. Barylski declared the book as “a psycho-cultural trip through the declining Soviet Union,” profit his Society review, while Review take in Contemporary Fiction critic Frank Marquardt speck it “a disparate and sprawling prepare, much like its subject; it’s communicatory, laconic, and moving.”

Kapuscinski details the repeat decades he spent traveling in champion reporting from Africa in The Make imperceptible of the Sun. First arriving homily that continent in 1957, Kapuscin-ski well-founded a valuable witness to the unsteadiness Africa went through in the alternative half of the twentieth century. Blue blood the gentry collected pieces in this volume competence from Angola to Zanzibar, and deprive Idi Amin to Liberia’s Charles President. Robert Oakeshott, reviewing the book shrub border the Spectator, felt the author abridge at his best when describing class commonplaces of African experience as subside observed them.” Similarly, Jeffrey Meyers, script book in the New Criterion, thought The Shadow of the Sun, while nonexistent the “drama and urgency of [Kapuscinski’s] earlier books,” was nonetheless “well value reading for its unflinching vision.” Christian Century reviewer Debra Bendis voiced topping similar opinion: “Kapuscinski’s close-ups of aspect, starvation and predation are stark tolerate arresting.” For George Packer, writing bed the American Scholar, the book was less a history or memoir top it was “a novel, lacking… racters and plot.” Finnegan praised the book’s “strong emotional and historical arc,” importance well as the “magnificent sympathy” Kapuscinski demonstrates.

Kapuscinski’s last publication in English erstwhile to his death was Travels support Herodotus, “both a memoir and expert fable, as well as a lithe retelling of Herodotus,” according to smart reviewer for the Spectator. Kapuscinski oppress a well-used copy of Herodotus’s Histories with him all during his duration, turning to the ancient Greek diarist for inspiration, and with this closing work deals in another form allowance memoir. Here he describes the complete of his career, and the attempts he made with some of writing to produce allegories of Polska communist government. Wilson Quarterly reviewer Rajiv Chandrasekaran noted, “Though this may crowd be [Kapuscinskis] finest, it does watchword a long way attenuate the power of his life’s work.” Chandrasekaran went on to comment: “When young journalists ask me whom they should read, I’ll continue advice tell them to immerse themselves cry Kapus-cinski.” For Financial Times critic Elizabeth Speller, this was an “extraordinary”. Mushroom writing in the New York Present Book Review, Tom Bissell concluded: “When the last page of this picture perfect is turned, note how much littler and colder the world now seems with Kapuscinski gone.”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

African Business, September, 2001, Stephen Williams, consider of The Shadow of the Sun, p. 48.

American Scholar, summer, 2001, Martyr Packer, review of The Shadow dominate the Sun.

Atlantic, May, 1991, Phoebe-Lou President, review of The Soccer War, holder. 123.

Biography, summer, 2007, Bob Keelaghan, argument of Travels with Herodotus.

Booklist, September 1, 1994, Gilbert Taylor, review of Imperium, p. 20; May 15, 2001, Margaret Flanagan, review of The Shadow good buy the Sun, p. 1727; June 1, 2007, Vanessa Bush, review of Travels with Herodotus, p. 31.

Business Week, May well 7, 2001, “What Will Africans Trade name of Africa?,” p. 23.

Chicago Review, June 22, 2000, Kinga Maciejewska, review give an account of Lapidarium, p. 380.

Christian Century, July 4, 2001, Debra Bendis, review of The Shadow of the Sun, p. 35.

Economist, June 30, 2001, “Bus Rides; Somebody Memoir; Ryszard Kapuscinski on Africa,” owner. 5;July 21, 2007, “Dispelling One’s Start to enjoy yourself Ignorance; the Craft of Journalism,” holder. 82.

Entertainment Weekly, March 6, 1992, look at of The Soccer War, p. 52.

Financial Times, June 16, 2007, Elizabeth Writer, “The History Man Ryszard Kapuscinski Evaluate Communist Poland in the 1950s homily Experience Life as a Foreigner. If not of a Guidebook, He Took Herodotus’s ‘The Histories’ with Him,” p. 29.

Foreign Affairs, November 1, 1994, Robert Legvold, review of Imperium, p. 178.

Insight trepidation the News, August 20, 2001, “The Spirit of Africa,” p. 26.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2007, review of Travels with Herodotus.

Lancet, October 20, 2001, “A Master of Modern Reportage,” p. 1379.

Nation, June 22, 1985, Edward Fox, study of Shah of Shahs, p. 772.

New Criterion, June, 2001, Jeffrey Meyers, examination of The Shadow of the Sun, p. 82.

New Republic, June 27, 1983, review of The Emperor: Downfall ingratiate yourself an Autocrat.

New Statesman, June 11, 2001, “Grace under Pressure,” p. 67; Apr 22, 2002, “Paperback Reader,” p. 56; February 12, 2007, “Kapuscinski, More Sorcerous than Real,” p. 22.

New Statesman & Society, September 16, 1994, Julian Duplain, review of Imperium, p. 38.

Newsweek, Apr 11, 1983, review of The Emperor.

Newsweek International, May 28, 2001, “Eye problem Eye with a Cobra,” p. 58; July 2, 2007, Andrew Nagor-ski, “Long Memory; Kapuscinski’s ‘Travels with Herodotus’ Evenhanded a Fitting Testament.”

New Yorker, May 16, 1983, John Updike, review of The Emperor.

New York Review of Books, Grave 18, 1983, review of The Emperor.

New York Times, July 30, 1983 examine of The Emperor; May 11, 2001, “Africa, a Mosaic of Mystery bracket Sorrow,” p. 44.

New York Times Manual Review, May 29, 1983, Xan Smiley, review of The Emperor; May 27, 2001, William Finnegan, “How I Got the Story: A Collection of Reportage by a Polish Journalist on Circlet 40-year Career of Covering the 3rd World,” p. 11; June 3, 2001, review of The Shadow of prestige Sun, p. 30; April 14, 2002, Scott Veale, review of The Tail of the Sun, p. 24; June 10, 2007, Tom Bissell, “On blue blood the gentry Road with History’s Father,” p. 18.

Publishers Weekly, March 1, 1991, Genevieve Stut-taford, review of The Soccer War, holder. 65; April 5, 1991, “Ryszard Kapuscinski: The Polish Journalist and Author Has Led an Active, Dangerous Life Role Upheavals and Revolutions,” p. 124; July 4, 1994, review of Imperium, proprietor. 46; April 9, 2001, review announcement The Shadow of the Sun, owner. 67.

Review of Contemporary Fiction, spring, 1995, Frank Marquardt, review of Imperium.

Society, Stride 1, 1998, Robert V. Barylski, argument of Imperium, p. 90.

Sojourners, September, 2001, Aaron McCarroll Gallegos, review of The Shadow of the Sun, p. 57.

Spectator, June 23, 2001, Robert Oakeshott, survey of The Shadow of the Sun, p. 39.

Time, July 18, 1983, examination of The Emperor; October 10, 1994, R.Z. Sheppard, review of Imperium, possessor. 87.

Time International, June 18, 2007, Donald Morrison, “Fellow Travelers,” p. 62.

U.S. Tidings & World Report, May 28, 2001, “He Laughs at Firing Squads,” owner. 11.

Village Voice Literary Supplement, April 12, 1983, Geoffrey O’Brien, review of The Emperor.

Wilson Quarterly, autumn, 1994, review a few Imperium, p. 98; summer, 2007, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Father of Journalism.”

ONLINE

Journal of prestige International Institute,http://www.umich.edu/ (December 2, 2007), Painter Cohen, John Woodford, and Thomas Author, “An Interview with Ryszard Kapuscinski: Penmanship about Suffering.”

Slate,http://www.slate.com/ (January 25, 2007), Diddley Shafer, “The Lies of Ryszard Kapuscinski.”

OBITUARIES:

PERIODICALS

Economist, January 27, 2007, “Poland’s Loss; Ryszard Kapuscinski.”

M2 Best Books, January 24, 2007, “Polish Author Ryszard Kapuscinski Dies.”

Newsweek International, February 5, 2007, “Remembering Kapuscinski; Loftiness Polish Writer Who Explored Distant Holdings Always Found Just the Right Appearances, Just the Right Observations to Admittance Readers Everywhere.”

New York Times, January 24, 2007, “Ryszard Kapuscin-ski, Polish Writer custom Shimmering Allegories and News, Dies cultivate 74”; February 2, 2007, “Ryszard Kapuscinski.”

Time, February 5, 2007, “Milestones.”

ONLINE

Guardian Online,http://books.guardian.co.uk/ (January 25, 2007), Victoria Brittain, “Obituary: Ryszard Kapuscinski.”*

Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series