Ryszard KapuŚciński
A Life
ARTUR DOMOSŁAWSKI
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
This English-language edition first published by Verso 2012
© Verso 2012
Translation © Antonia Lloyd-Jones 2012
First published as Kapuściński non-fiction
© Świat Książki 2010
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
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Verso
UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG
US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Verso is the imprint of New Left Books
Epub ISBN-13: 978-1-84467-918-8
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Domoslawski, Artur, 1967-
[Kapuscinski non-fiction. English]
Ryszard Kapuscinski : a life / Artur Domoslawski ; translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84467-858-7 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-1-84467-918-8 (ebook)
1. Kapuscinski, Ryszard. 2. Journalists--Poland--Biography. I. Lloyd-Jones, Antonia. II. Title.
PN5355.P62K36313 2012
070.92--dc23
[B]
2012012437
Typeset in Bembo by Hewer UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed in the US by Maple Vail
Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life.
Gabriel García Márquez to his biographer, Gerald Martin
All sorts of biographies enjoy great popularity (every bookshop has a large, separate biographical section). It implies a sort of self-defence reaction against the advancing anonymity of the world. People still have a need to commune (if only through reading) with someone specific, an individual who has a name, a face, habits and desires. The appeal of biography also comes from the fact that people would like to see how this great person achieved greatness, they’d like to get an inside look at his style.
Ryszard Kapuściński, Lapidarium
The merit of writers’ biographies continues to be disputed. For some, the work is all we need to know. Others say they love the books, so they want to know more about the people who wrote them. Then there is always the possibility that the life will throw light on the books and deepen our understanding of them.
Ian Buruma, writer and journalist
The lives of writers are a legitimate subject of inquiry; and the truth should not be skimped. It may well be, in fact, that a full account of a writer’s life might in the end be more a work of literature and more illuminating – of a cultural or historical moment – than the writer’s books.
V. S. Naipaul, writer, Nobel Prize winner, 2001
A biography can never fully reveal the source of its subject. The commonplace that a biographer has found the ‘key’ to a person’s life is implausible. People are too complicated and inconsistent for this to be true. The best a biographer can hope for is to illuminate aspects of a life and seek to give glimpses of the subject, and that way tell a story.
Patrick French, biographer of V. S. Naipaul
Contents
4 Legends 1: His Father and Katyń
5 Inspired by Poetry, Storming Heaven
7 On the Construction Site of Socialism
8 Lapidarium 2: Lance Corporal Kapuściński
9 On the Construction Site of Socialism, Continued
12 The Third World: A Clash and a Beginning
14 Legends 2: Sentenced to Death by Firing Squad
15 In ‘Rakowski’s Gang’, Continued
17 Objects of Fascination: The African Icons
20 Lapidarium 3: The Reporter as Politician
21 On the Trail of Che Guevara
22 Legends 3: Che, Lumumba, Allende