The Soccer War

by Ryszard Kapuściński, William Brand (Translator)

In 1964, Kapuscinski was appointed by the Polish Press Agency as its only foreign correspondent. Over the next 10 years, he witnessed 27 revolutions and coups, and befriended people such as Che Guevara, Salvador Allende and Patrice Lumumba.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Travel, Africa, Journalism, Polish Literature, War

234 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Ryszard Kapuściński debuted as a poet in Dziś i jutro at the age of 17 and has been a journalist, writer, and publicist. In 1964 he was appointed to the Polish Press Agency and began traveling around the developing world and reporting on wars, coups and revolutions in Asia, the Americas, and Europe; he lived through twenty-seven revolutions and coups, was jailed forty times, and survived four death sentences. During some of this time he also worked for the Polish Secret Service, although little is known of his role.

See also Ryszard Kapuściński Prize

Reviews

[Daren · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the many short stories in this collection, The Soccer War explains the war between Honduras and El Salvador in 1969, kicked off by a series of 1970 Football World Cup qualifying matches. It is an interesting story, but a slightly misleading title for this book.

Until I started reading, I didn't realise it was short stories (or reportage pieces), although to be fair they are of a similar theme, often interconnected or consecutive, and apparently in a linear timeline. The theme is described in the blurb on the back of this edition this way: "In 1964, Ryszard Kapuściński was appointed by the Polish Press Agency as its only foreign correspondent, and for the next ten years he was 'responsible' for fifty countries... By the time he returned to Poland he had witnessed twenty-seven revolutions and coups. The Soccer War is Kapuściński's story, his eye-witness account of the emergence of the Third World."

Starting in Ghana, we follow Kapuściński's career path to Congo, Tanganyika (now part of Tanzania), then Algeria, Dahomey (now Benin), and Nigeria. Moving on to The Americas, Kapuściński commences in Chile before we are immersed in The Soccer War. Next we are in Damascus, Syria, where we discuss the Israel / Palestine problems; followed by Greek Cyprus, invaded by the Turkish. We end in Ethiopia and Somalian disputed territory - another warzone.

As much as I enjoy Kapuściński's writing, I feel I can never trust him 100%, due to some divergences with truth in other books. That said, this book appears free from controversy, and reads legitimately.

Kapuściński demonstrates time and again that he happily walks toward danger in the course of carrying out his work. Whether it is narrowly avoiding being doused in benzene and set on fire at a roadblock in Nigeria; disorientated and scrambling through the bush, mid-war, with a Honduran soldier who is intent on collecting the boots of dead soldiers for his family; or panicking alone in his tent after being stung on the face by a scorpion in Ethiopia: "Scorpions sting people like mosquitos. Those who took a heavy dose of venom died. From here to the nearest hospital was two days on the road. Lie down, said Marcos. They left me alone in my tent."

There are some hard-hitting short reportage stories in this book, which is well worth seeking out.

4 stars.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A re-read. I don’t re-read a lot of books. My TBR list is too long for that. However I recently mentioned this book in a thread elsewhere on GR, and that prompted me to revisit it. I first read it about 30 years ago.

This is a compilation of pieces written by Kapuściński during his career as a foreign correspondent, and covering the period from the early 1960s to about the mid-seventies (Kapuściński doesn’t often give dates in his books). The piece I remembered best from my first read was the title essay, The Soccer War, about the short conflict between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. On reading the book again, I was surprised that the article on The Soccer War took up only about 30 pages from a total of 240. I was however, as impressed with it on this occasion as on my first reading.

Most of the book is taken up with reports from the author’s spells in Africa. Kapuściński always said that Africa fascinated him. He first arrived just as many African countries were declaring their independence, and in many cases the early years of independence were chaotic and extremely violent. Many different countries feature here, although probably the longest pieces were about Congo, Nigeria and Algeria. The reports from the first two contain some hair-raising descriptions of violence, and according to the author’s own account he narrowly escaped death on more than one occasion. He seems to have had a sort of addiction to these dangerous locations and situations. I suppose that’s what it takes to be a foreign correspondent.

One non-typical piece in here simply relates the content of a debate in the Tanganyikan Parliament about a proposal to pay a form of child support to unwed mothers, but it tells you a great deal about the attitudes of the period.

Kapuściński’s reportage was always highly impressionistic, but that of course is what makes him a good read. These reports are anything but a dry recitation of events. He was a tremendously eloquent writer.

[Danesda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Del rey del periodismo, para mi el mejor cronista de la historia.

Nos cuenta como todo puede escalar desde un partido de futbol hasta la revolucion en un pais.

espectacular.

Video reseña en:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBBPRiIFLXo/

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am living on a raft in a side-street in the merchant district of Accra. The raft stands on pilings, two-storeys high, and is called the Hotel Metropol… In the tropics, drinking is obligatory. They frequently drink during the daytime, but in the evening the drinking is mandatory; the drinking is premeditated. After all, it is the evening that shades into night, and it is the night that lies in wait for anyone reckless enough to have spurned alcohol.

The opening words of the book. The chapter “The Hotel Metropol”.








Kapuściński (1932-2007) was a celebrated, though somewhat controversial, writer, who began his career as a free-lance (more or less) journalist. In the mid-50s he began a quarter century of reporting for the Polish Press Agency, which ended with his firing in 1981 because of his support for the Solidarity movement. During this time he was the Agency’s only correspondent in Africa in the era of decolonization.

Wiki lists about fifteen of Kapuściński’s books that are available in English, along with almost two dozen that aren’t. There’s also a list of ten pieces which appeared in the British magazine Granta, and six books of Kapuściński’s photography. It is said that he was once considered for a Nobel prize.


the two types of chapters in the book

Most of the book’s chapters seem to be a curious style of reportage, one in which the author is writing not only about an event or person or place, but also about his own reaction to that event/person/place.

Of these, I list here, with little comment, the titles of those I was most thrilled/appalled to read.

- From the Streets of Harlem (Nkruma)
- Lumumba
- The Offensive (300 soldiers off to war; black and white in Africa; back in the hotel)
- The Child-Support Bill in the Tanganyikan Parliament (Dec. ’63)
- Algeria Hides Its Face (June ’65)
- The Burning Roadblocks (facing death in Jan. ’66)
- The Soccer War
- There Will Be No Paradise (summer ’74, Cyprus; very moving; superb writing)


Then there are five chapters, irregularly spaced amidst the others, with these titles:

- Plan for a Book that Could Have Started Right Here
- More of the Plan of a Book that Could Have Been Written
- The Plan of the Never-Written Book that Could Be, Etc,
- High Time I Started Writing the Next Unwritten Book …
- High Time Continued, or the Plan of the Next Unwritten Book, Etc.

These chapters have numbered sections – a centered number, a bold line under, text – a sentence, a paragraph, a couple pages – the next number, again centered, the next line, again bold, more text – etc.

Here are bits (or the whole bit) of the first sections of these five chapters, in the order given above – but with the number NOT centered, and with no line, bold or otherwise.

(Plan for …) 1
I have come home from Africa: a jump from a tropical roasting-spit into a snowbank.
‘You’re so tanned. Have you been in Zakopane?’
…

(More of the Plan …) 10
In this book that I haven’t written for lack of time and sufficient will-power, I would like to include the story of the few hours that we lived through after the night when Stanleyville learned that Lumumba had been murdered, and that he had died in circumstances so bestial that they trampled all dignity… I looked at Duszan: he was standing there, pale, with fear in his eyes, and I think that I too must have been standing there, pale, with fear in my eyes …

(The Plan of …) 31
God’s victim, I have been lying in Lagos for two months like Lazarus, struggling against illness. It is some sort of tropical infection, blood poisoning or a reaction to an unknown venom, and it is bad enough to make me swell up and leave my body covered with sores, suppurations and carbuncles …

(High Time …)
… or rather its plan, or even disjointed fragments of a plan, because if it were a complete and finished work it would not fit into an existing book to which I have already added one non-existent book.
1
After returning from Central Asia, I stayed only briefly in Warsaw. In the autumn of that same year, 1967, I left for five years in Latin America …

(High Time Continued …)
9
I was thinking of weaving into this book a dictionary of various phrases that take on different meanings according to the degree of geographical latitude, and which serve to define things that have similar names but distinct appearances. Such a dictionary would look more or less like this:
10
SILENCE. …



his views on Africa and its people, and his fascination


At the end of The Hotel Metropol, the author has this to say.

In those days, the 1960s, the world was very interested in Africa. Nobody knew what would happen when 300 million people stood up and demanded the right to be heard…
The so-called exotic has never interested me, even though I came to spend more than a dozen years in a world that is exotic by definition. I did not write about hunting crocodiles or head-hunters, although I admit they are interesting subjects. I discovered instead a different reality, one that attracted me more than expeditions to the villages of witch doctors or wild animal reserves. A new Africa was being born - and this was not a figure of speech or a platitude from an editorial. The hour of its birth was sometimes dramatic and painful, sometimes enjoyable and jubilant; it was always different (from our point of view) from anything we had known, and it was exactly this difference that struck me as new, as the previously undescribed, as the exotic.

I thought the best way to write about this Africa was to write about the man who was its greatest figure, a politician, a visionary, a judge and a sorcerer – Kwame Nkrumah.

It’s hard for me to imagine a reader who would not collapse with exhaustion after tearing through this book - having been alternately amused, appalled, affected, awakened, anxious, and absolutely annihilated – and then, perhaps, starting all over again.



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[Mads · Rating 5 out of 5]

And yet again, another book that taught me not to whine and write about how the trip was uncomfortable, the food was bad, the mosquitoes were huge, the leeches were everywhere, etc etc. These trivialities don't deserve to be mentioned in books. But if you are staring at the barrel of a gun pointed in your direction by a jittery boy no older than 8 years old in an improvised checkpoint in the middle of night, then that's something to write about.

[Kuszma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ryszard Kapuściński az a fajta száguldó riporter volt, akinek elég, ha kimondtad a nevét, és a világ diktátorainak fele lucskosra izzadta rémületében az Armani öltönyét. (A másik fele meg azt hitte, tüsszentettél.) Nem akad nála jobb ismerője annak, amit a szakirodalom „alacsony intenzitású háborúnak” nevez – testközelből látott annyit belőlük, hogy még. Ez a háború jellemzően a világ túlsó felén szokott zajlani, olyan részvevők között, akiknek még a nevét se tudjuk megjegyezni. Nem milliós hadseregek feszülnek benne egymásnak, hanem gyakran csak pár tucat fős irreguláris egységek, akik egy európai aggyal megfejthetetlen ideológiai, vallási vagy törzsi nézeteltérés, esetleg egy csontszáraz, érdektelen bozótos miatt kaszabolják halomra egymást. Aki erre megvonja a vállát, annak kijelentem: aki egy ilyen háborúban hal meg, az éppúgy meg lesz halva, mint a „normális” háborúk áldozatai, sőt, ami azt illeti, az Isten háta mögött zajló konfliktusokban a felek hajlamosak még gátlástalanabbul kiélni brutalitásukat. Kapuściński pedig pont oda, Afrika, Ázsia és Dél-Amerika láthatatlanabb felébe utazik el, hogy láttassa velünk, amit még nem láttunk.

Riportregény tehát, de olyan riportregény, ami tisztában van saját korlátaival: folyton emlékezteti magát, hogy nem tud mindent elmondani, amit kéne. (Alkalmasint ez a lehető legtisztességesebb eljárás.) És egyben kalandregény is, mert sokat lőnek, menekülnek és hasalnak benne. De a legszebb, hogy mindemellett egy káprázatos tudással megírt szépirodalmi szöveg is – nagyjából ezért tudom ajánlani köbö mindenkinek, akit kicsit is érdekel a világ rajta kívül eső fele. És remélem, mi ilyenek vagyunk.

[Roy Lotz · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was my good fortune that somebody in my book club chose this little gem to read. I hadn’t heard of Kapuściński before, and perhaps I never would have. Even if I did, I doubt I would have read anything by him. A Polish journalist?

Whenever I try to explain to friends what is so enjoyable about this book, my mind jumps to the writing. Kapuściński is just a damned good writer. He is a master of brevity. He can conjure a scene, a town, a whole country, with just a few paragraphs. He can summon up a quirky personality or a unique character with a few lines of dialogue.

And what a character he is himself. If he is not guilty of romanticizing his own life (and I doubt he is), Kapuściński is a reckless sonuvabitch. He seems to have a kind of Freudian death-urge. He gets himself into one dangerous situation after another, diving headfirst into wars, rebellions, slums, ghettos, and deserts. He gets shot at by militants, sick with exotic diseases, put in jail, and stung by scorpions. So, unlike many (if not most) fancy prose stylists, Kapuściński’s life was interesting in itself.

The only thing lacking from Kapuściński’s writing was the big picture. He has his eyes close to the ground, and is brilliant at conveying what it was like to be in the midst of these historic situations. Yet he seldom analyzes the economic and political forces at play; he doesn’t supplement his field mouse’s perspectives with a bird’s-eye view. It’s a pity, really, as I’m sure somebody as perspicacious as Kapuściński would have some worthwhile insights on the broader scale.

This, however, is only a mild complaint; and Kapuściński's prose is lovely enough to make up for any lapses in content. In short, I’m tremendously impressed with both the man and his work; I’ll have to read more.

[Jay Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a perfect book of reportage but near as dammit. The first Kapuscinski book I've read and won't be the last. Extraordinarily vivid and lucid writing. Reminded me a little of Graham Greene in the flatness of tone and matter-of-fact descriptions of the grim, gruesome, and picaresque, but it's what you want from a war journalist. A Hunter S. Thompson with more restraint and fewer drugs. Loved it.

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jun 7, 930am ~~ Review asap.

115pm ~~ This book was just as intense as the other RK titles I have recently read, but it is also a bit different. There are essays about many different countries here: some in Africa, some in Latin America, and one that deals with the island of Cyprus. The connecting thread throughout the book is the timeline of the author's career.

The rough and ready reporter is still here, but we also get insights into why he went where he went, why he felt he had to see and experience as much as possible, even when he was convinced that he might not live through what he was witnessing. As much as I loved all the other books, I appreciated this one for the glimpse of Ryszard as a living breathing person, not merely a very astute observer of the chaos going on around him.

The title essay, The Soccer War, begins by telling about the games that started everything. Only there was history behind the games: we learn pretty quickly that soccer was really only the flashpoint, not the main reason for the violence.

It sounds so silly, doesn't it. "The Soccer War". It was short, too. Only one hundred hours. But...
"Its victims: 6,000 dead, more than 12,000 wounded. Fifty thousand people lost their homes and fields. Many villages were destroyed."

He goes on at this point to explain the real reasons for the war. and as far as I can see looking at the two countries nearly 35 years afterwards, nothing much has been done to improve conditions in either place. How sad.

I have one RK title left in this little project. After my Max Brand break, RK and I are heading to the Soviet Union to see what we can see. I think it will be fascinating.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. The difference between Kapuscincki and the average person could be summed up in an anecdote he relates in this book. One evening he was drinking (heavily, as usual) in a bar in some Third World backwater when a wild-eyed man barges in and starts shouting, "They're killing anyone who goes down that road, stay away!" I'd stay put, might even crawl under the table, Kapuscinski finishes his drink and ventures down the road to see what's happening. Brave man, wonderful writer.

[Petrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

p.145: The desk. "Behind such a desk, man resembles an invalid in an orthaepedic brace . . . Furniture divides man from man . . . Upon the desk I have declared a silent war. . . . Many thinkers worry over the progressive bureaucratization of the world and the social threat of its terror. Yet they forget that these very bureaucrats are themselves terrorized, and that they are terrorized by their desks. Once plunked down behind one, a man will never learn to tear himself free."
p. 190: "Today one hears about noise pollution, but silence pollution is worse. Noise pollution affects the nerves; silence pollution is a matter of human lives. No one defends the maker of a loud noise, whereas those who establish silence in their own states are protected by an apparatus of repression. That is why the battle against silence is so difficult."
p.142 (excerpt from Claude Levi-Strauss's Tristes Tropiques: Facing difficulties on the field and second guessing his career choices, "Meanwhile, the more prudent of my former colleagues were beginning to climb the academic ladder . . . did my decision express a deep-seated incompatibility with my social setting so that, whatever happened, I would inevitable live in a state of ever greater estrangement from it? . . . Through a remarkable paradox, my life adventure, instead of opening up a new world for me, had the effect rather of brining me back to the old one, and the world I had been looking for disintegrated in my grasp."

[Bob Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mankind kicks endless own goals

As somebody who once lived in Honduras before the infamous soccer war of 1969, I long had Kapuscinski's book on my "must read" list. Though I bought it in 2000, I didn't get around to reading it till 2005. I'm glad I did. THE SOCCER WAR is another sterling volume from this master of description.

THE SOCCER WAR isn't a book about the absurd war between El Salvador and Honduras, triggered by World Cup qualification matches, but really caused by El Salvador's overpopulation and the subsequent overflow of Salvadoreños into much-emptier Honduras. The war may also be ascribed to the fact that neither country has been able to tame its landowning classes, who continue to this day to run rampant over the poor masses of people. In any case, this war, which happened decades ago, occupies only 30 pages of a 234 page book. The rest of the book contains vignettes from Ghana, Nigeria, Congo, Burundi, Algeria, Tanganyika, Syria, Cyprus, and Ethiopia. I think another title would have given readers a better idea of what the book is about. Anyway, I would not say this book is about particular societies or countries, rather it is about the human condition. Kapuscinski, if you have read any of his other (excellent) work, specializes in inserting himself into extreme situations----war, rebellion, conflict, and abnormal behavior. Where the strictures of daily life have fallen down, we find him reporting, usually at considerable risk to his person. He is nearly burned to death in Nigeria, nearly executed in Burundi, nearly lynched in the Congo, nearly blown up in Honduras. In every case, he manages to portray some participants as humane and decent, or as simple people caught up in events beyond their control. He never writes off groups of people as `wild' or `barbarous', but manages to `read' them even as he faces almost certain death. The absurdity of all this violence, the violence that never ends on this planet, comes through loud and clear. Ryszard, you wrote your best, but nobody in charge listened. Readers of the book, however, will come away with a better understanding of human nature and its universal similarity on every continent, among every race and religion. From the stupidity, waste, and blood, we can learn. We just don't.

[Ryan (Glay)]

It has taken me awhile to REALLY like a Kapuscinski book but this is the one.

I don't think it helped that the first thing I ever read ON Kapuscinski was an awfully translated biography of him that was almost unreadable.

The other Kapuscinski books I had read, 'Imperium' and 'The Emperor' were Good but something was just different about this work. I think what made this work different and better was the diary like format of it where he employed different styles, and reflections from many of the different locations he has reported on in the world. He even has a great little 'Dictionary' section in which he describes what the meaning of certain words are to him.

The titular piece of 'The Soccer War' (the War in 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras) wasn't even my favourite piece of his in the collection, though good. Kapuscinski just feels different when he is writing about Africa, like it is his first love, where his world was opened up and everything changed for him. Being young and being thrown into the whirlwind of reporting on African de-colonization must have been a heady and intoxicating mix and you feel it instantly in his writing. I especially liked his piece about trying to sneak into Congo to report on the ouster of Patrice Lumumba in 1961.

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Auch wenn man inzwischen weiß, dass Ryszard Kapuściński vieles von dem übertrieben und glatt erfunden hat, was er als erlebt berichtet hat. Liest er sich unverändert hellsichtig und unterhaltsam. Der Titel dieser Anthologie ist allerdings irreführend. Wie meist bei Kapuściński geht es um Afrika frisch nach der Unabhängigkeit der Staaten mit Putsch über Putsch und natürlich geht es auch immer um Kapuściński.

[H.Sapiens · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10

Solidne reportaże. Urzekła mnie (i wzięła z zaskoczenia) nienawiść jaką Kapuściński żywił do biurek :,)

[Sean Mccarrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Travels With Herodotus was Kapuscinski's ode to his passion of travel, if Shadow of the Sun was his ode to Africa, The Emperor and The Shah of Shahs his ode to the rule of despotic and complex characters, Imperium his ode to the era of the Second World, Another Day of Life his ode to the ravages of war, the Other as his ode to philosophy, then the Soccer War seems to be his ode to the feelings of joy and despair in the third world. Not only does Kapuscinski explore his own feelings in such situations as revolutions and coups, he explores his feelings in the context of the larger, and more universal feelings of despair from which society often finds itself reeling. This book is the work of genius.

[Jack M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essays that jumped from one geographical location to another, but enjoyable nonetheless. The bonus interview with Kapuscinski in which he reflects upon writing and journalism was fascinating, I've linked it below.
http://kapuscinski.info/an-interview-...

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. Legendary Polish reporter recounts his time covering Africa, Latin America, and parts of Central Europe in the 60s and 70s in remarkably clean and pithy and luminous writing that pounds away until you realize it's woven a spell around you. Alma Guillermoprieto told our class, as an exercise to improve our writing, that we should copy one page of a good book in longhand every day. I may start doing that with this one. Here's a bit in non-longhand:

The whole land of the Yorubas is in flames.

I was driving along a road where they say no white man can come back alive. I was driving to see if a white man could, because I had to experience everything for myself. I know that a man shudders in the forest when he passes close to a lion. I got close to a lion so that I would know how it feels. I had to do it myself because I knew no one could describe it to me. And I cannot describe it to myself. Nor can I describe a night in the Sahara. The stars over the Sahara are enormous. They sway above the land like great chandeliers. The light of those stars is green. Night in the Sahara is as green as a Mazowsze meadow.

***

Everyone could see his muscles contracting and the sweat beading up on his sallow skin. The tense muscles and streams of sweat showed the ferocity of battle, when life goes against death. Everybody was interested in it because everybody wanted to know how much strength there was in life and how much there was in death. Everybody wanted to see how long life could hold off death and whether a young life that's still there and doesn't want to give up would be able to outlast death.

[Leftbanker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can imagine the scene in my head. Among a group of journalists someone calls out, “The shit is about to hit the fan in (insert name of shit-hole country).” Then we cut to the street as Ryszard Kapuściński hails a cab. “Taxi, take me to the fan, and step on it!”

There are precious few real journalists these days in our era of Brian Williams and Bill O’Reilly making up crap about their exploits as newsmen. First of all, neither of the two are journalists, they are news readers. Television is almost completely empty or real reporting and our print media world is shrinking every minute. All TV seems to do is narrate over footage of the latest disaster and call in “experts” to opine us all into a coma.

[Joni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es un placer leer a Kapuśiński, aún cuando bajo su obra se cubra un manto de desconfianza en cuanto a ciertos detalles o exageraciones.
Haciéndose a un lado esto, tenemos mucha información histórica desde las entrañas que más que ir subrayando el libro, tener a mano acceso a la red para investigar sobre cada sitio, personajes y momento clave.
Esta edición trae cuatro crónicas, tres sobre África y la restante que da el nombre al libro, sobre la guerra Centroamericana que tuvo un comienzo tan absurdo ( como si existiesen razones válidas y lógicas para comenzarlas).
Es un buen punto de inicio para conocer al autor.

[Lukáš Palán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bom dia,

Ryšard Kapučíno nám tu povídá o safari, na které vyjel v minulém století, když ještě nebyly twittery, tudíž se musely psát odstavce a celé stránky. Že bylo o čem psát je bez pochyb, páč tehdá jste šli ráno do práce a než jste se z ní vrátili, mezitím se třikrát změnil název státu, dvakrát byla občanská válka, šest králů bylo zastřeleno a souseda vám snědl gepard nebo druhej soused. Kromě toho, že měl Kapučíno díky své odvaze materiálu na rozdávání, ještě umí dobře psát, takže já hodnotím povedených 9/10. Ten jeden bod ubírám za to, že v knize není ani zmíňka o FC Drnovice nebo Atletico Lázně Bohdaneč.

[Andrew]

In his unmistakable style, in these mostly unconnected essays, Kapuscinski looks at the sheer weirdness of the world around him, whether he's covering the death of Patrice Lumumba or the titular violence surrounding a Honduras-El Salvador football match. While perhaps not as strong as his more concentrated studies-- Travels with Herodotus jumps to mind-- it's still classic Kapuscinski, and if you've made your way through a few of his journalistic works and travelogues, this is a logical next step.

[Adam McPhee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stories from a renowned Polish journalist who saw Africa in the sixties: Lumumba's Congo, a coup in newly independent Algeria, the Nigerian civil war, Ethiopian-Somali war and famine, parliamentary debate on a child support bill in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). Plus Israel-Palestine, Cyprus, and the eponymous Soccer War between Honduras and El Salvador, which kicked off because of soccer tensions and lasted one hundred hours, left 6,000 dead, and was missed by the world media who were focused on the moon landing.

His best anecdotes are about roadblocks in Nigeria, a Honduran soldier who risks his life to strip boots from the dead for his barefoot family, witnessing an execution on television, being asked to start a socialist party in the Congo, trying to convince Ghanians that Poland, albeit a country full of white people, was the colonized and not the colonizer, and being held prisoner in Burundi and being saved by a Congolese who got a message to the U.N.

Ben Bella's coup paranoia: He no longer trusted anyone. People were either plotting or carrying out sabotage. One day he introduced Boumedienne to an Egyptian journalist with the words, ‘This is the man who is preparing the conspiracy against me.’ And he asked: ‘How are the intrigues coming along?’ ‘Quite well, thank you,’ Boumedienne replied.


Socialism in the Congo: Our first conversation. They introduced themselves: ‘Socialists from Kasai.’
Nice to meet you.
After a few pleasantries one of them came right out with it: ‘We need money.’
‘What for?’ asked Jarda Boucek, my Czech friend.
‘We want socialism to triumph in Kasai. And for that, we must buy off the leaders of our province.’
They were young, and you must make allowances for youth. So Jarda said that socialism does not triumph by means of money. He added something about the masses. ‘The masses first,’ that’s how Jarda put it.
The socialists sat there, downcast. For them, the masses were not so important. Had we ever seen the millions marching here? The millions are passive, directionless, diffuse. All the action takes place among the leaders. Five hundred names, maximum. And it’s exactly those names that you have to buy. Once you’ve bought a few, you can go ahead and set up a government, and the ones who put up the money determine the kind of government it will be. That’s how the governments of Chombego, Kalonji and Bolikango were started. There are many possibilities, many untapped reserves. I quickly calculated that I had 1,000 dollars left. I wondered if I could buy myself a republic. One with a real army, a government and a national anthem. I might not get much of a republic for my money. A thousand dollars is not a great sum. I would not be in the same league as Washington or London or Brussels. No: I had to forget about it. So did my friends.

Stumbling upon a coup: It was in Dahomey that I came across a coup by sheer accident.
As I was driving into Cotonou, which constitutes half the capital of Dahomey (the other half, called Port Novo, is thirty kilometres down the road), I passed a car being driven by the AFP correspondent, Jacques Lamoureux, who started shouting at me: ‘Stop! Pull over! There’s a revolution here!’ Lamoureux was visibly elated, because Cotonou is a pretty little town but a boring one and its sole real attraction is the revolution, which occurs only once every few months.
This time the president of the republic, Sourou Migan Apithy, was locked in a struggle with Justin Ahomadegbe, the vice-president and head of the government. Their dispute had started with an argument over which one of them had the right to appoint a judge to the Supreme Court. Each wanted to fill the position, as each had a large family among whom various positions continually had to be distributed.

...

During the course of the military takeover that I was about to witness, I did not see a single armed soldier. This distinguished the present coup from that of October 1963, when the army used weapons: namely, the one mortar in the possession of the Dahomeyan army. When Soglo arrested Hubert Maga, the members of the cabinet, unsure about what was happening, barricaded themselves in a small building near the main square. Soglo himself then set up the mortar in front of the building (he was the only one in the army who knew how to operate it) and announced through a megaphone that if the cabinet did not resign by four in the afternoon, he would begin firing on the building. The cabinet decided unanimously to resign, which it communicated to Soglo through the window, and thus ended the political crisis of October 1963.

Predicting a war: Luis Suarez said there was going to be a war, and I believed whatever Luis said. We were staying together in Mexico. Luis was giving me a lesson in Latin America: what it is and how to understand it. He could foresee many events. In his time he had predicted the fall of Goulart in Brazil, the fall of Bosch in the Dominican Republic and of Jimenez in Venezuela. Long before the return of Perón he believed that the old caudillo would again become president of Argentina; he foretold the sudden death of the Haitian dictator François Duvalier at a time when everybody said Papa Doc had many years left. Luis knew how to pick his way through Latin politics, in which amateurs like me got bogged down and blundered helplessly with each step.
This time Luis announced his belief that there would be a war after putting down the newspaper in which he had read a report on the soccer match between the Honduran and Salvadoran national teams. The two countries were playing for the right to take part in the 1970 World Cup in Mexico.
The first match was held on Sunday 8 June 1969, in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa.
Nobody in the world paid any attention.


Soccer and politics: Luis read about all of this in the newspaper and said that there was going to be a war. He had been a reporter for a long time and he knew his beat.

In Latin America, he said, the border between soccer and politics is vague. There is a long list of governments that have fallen or been overthrown after the defeat of the national team. Players on the losing team are denounced in the press as traitors. When Brazil won the World Cup in Mexico, an exiled Brazilian colleague of mine was heartbroken: ‘The military right wing,’ he said, ‘can be assured of at least five more years of peaceful rule.’ On the way to the title, Brazil beat England. In an article with the headline ‘Jesus Defends Brazil’, the Rio de Janeiro paper Jornal dos Sportes explained the victory thus: ‘Whenever the ball flew towards our goal and a score seemed inevitable, Jesus reached his foot out of the clouds and cleared the ball.’ Drawings accompanied the article, illustrating the supernatural intervention.


Canadian journalism and diplomacy in Latin America: The major advised us to return to Tegucigalpa, because advancing might mean getting killed without even knowing who had done it. (As if that mattered, I thought.) But the television cameramen said they had to push forward, to the front line, to film soldiers in action, firing, dying. Gregor Straub of NBC said he had to have a close-up of a soldier’s face dripping sweat. Rodolfo Carillo of CBS said he had to catch a despondent commander sitting under a bush and weeping because he had lost his whole unit. A French cameraman wanted a panorama shot with a Salvadoran unit charging a Honduran unit from one side, or vice versa. Somebody else wanted to capture the image of a soldier carrying his dead comrade. The radio reporters sided with the cameramen. One wanted to record the cries of a casualty summoning help, growing weaker and weaker, until he breathed his last breath. Charles Meadows of Radio Canada wanted the voice of a soldier cursing war amid a hellish racket of gunfire. Naotake Mochida of Radio Japan wanted the bark of an officer shouting to his commander over the roar of artillery—using a Japanese field telephone.
...
The announcer was reading a string of communiqués from the front. Next we heard that a wide range of governments, the countries of Latin America, along with many from Europe and Asia, wanted to bring the war between Honduras and El Salvador to an end, and had already issued statements about it. The African countries were expected to take a stand presently. Communiqués from Australia and Oceania were also expected. China was silent, which was provoking interest, and so, too, was Canada. The Canadian reticence could be explained by the fact that a Canadian correspondent, Charles Meadows, was at the front and his situation might be complicated or made more dangerous by a statement now.


A foreign correspondent's life: Pack the suitcase. Unpack it, pack it, unpack it, pack it: typewriter (Hermes Baby), passport (SA 323273), ticket, airport, stairs, airplane, fasten seat-belt, take off, unfasten seat-belt, flight, rocking, sun, stars, space, hips of strolling stewardesses, sleep, clouds, falling engine speed, fasten seat-belt, descent, circling, landing, earth, unfasten seat-belts, stairs, airport, immunization book, visa, customs, taxi, streets, houses, people, hotel, key, room, stuffiness, thirst, otherness, foreignness, loneliness, waiting, fatigue, life.

The Cypriot Rabbit of Seville Nicosia, night, ten minutes after midnight.
A shot rings out on the Greek side.
The silence lasts for a second.
Then come three shots from the Turkish side.
Next, from the Greeks: ten.
And a hundred from the Turks.
And five hundred from the Greeks.
And a thousand from the Turks.
And a cannon from the Greeks.
And a heavier cannon from the Turks.
So 125’s from the Greeks.
But 164’s from the Turks.
Thus incendiaries from the Greeks.
To which, from the Turks, fragmentation.

Drought in Ogaden: In these wanderings he acknowledges no borders; for him the world is not divided into states, but into places where there is water, and therefore life, and places where there is drought, and therefore death. They say that there has been no gu for several years, that an eternal jilal has prevailed. Everything has changed. For a time they wandered as before, but they found water more and more rarely. The desert grew larger, became enormous, had no boundaries. First the sheep fell, and later the goats. Then the children began to die, and later the asses fell. Next, the women died. Anyone who comes across a tea-kettle or a pot while walking will find the remains of the woman nearby.

[Lubomír Tichý · Rating 5 out of 5]

V jedné ze svých reportáží Kapuściński popisuje averzi vůči psacímu stolu, s kterým vede tichou válku. Už to vypovídá o přístupu autora k žurnalistice – nestačí mu se o událostech dočíst, ale samotné je zažít, až poté je schopen o nich podat skutečně autentickou zprávu. Ve dvaceti pěti reportážích představuje obraz (českému čtenáři ne tolik známých) států v bouřlivém období, například Ghany, Konga, Alžírska, Nigérie, Salvadoru, Hondurasu, ale i nám geograficky vcelku blízkému Kypru.
Většina reportáží se alespoň lehce dotýká revolučních událostí afrických států, které vypukly zejména v padesátých a šedesátých letech. Kvůli absenci zkušenosti demokracie, nedostatku surovin, nezaměstnanosti, korupci či rozdělenosti společnosti posléze velmi často docházelo k občanským válkám, které byly doprovázeny krvavými konflikty. Dostává se i na území Latinské Ameriky, která sice netrpí materiálním nedostatkem, ale spíše úpadkem hodnot. Poslední reportáž je situována na ostrov Kypr, v němž je zobrazen univerzální problém mnohých společností: samotní lidé proti sobě nic nemají (ba naopak si Turci a Řekové v tomto nepříjemném období pomáhají), ale jakási vyšší moc si nedá říci a bojuje bez ohledu na dopad na civilisty.
Kapuścińského přístup však v žádném případě není senzacechtivý. Obraz události velmi často vyvozuje z jednotlivých lidských osudů, které jsou rozhodně pozoruhodné: hned v první reportáži se setkáváme s různorodým osazenstvem hotelu Metropol, který se nachází na úrovni prvního patra a skládá se z voru; starý indián na poušti v Mexiku, jenž sedí ve vyhrabaném důlku zakrytý kloboukem a poslouchá svou jedinou gramofonovou desku; rolník, se kterým se Kapuściński setkává při útěku od dění hondurasko-salvadorské války, jenž neodolá botám mrtvých vojáků, aby je zajistil pro svoji bosou rodinu. Právě příběh jednotlivce vypovídá o mnohem širší skutečnosti, než se zpočátku může zdát.
V knize se nenacházejí pouze "čistokrevné" reportáže, ale autorovy osnovy k dalším chystaným (a nikdy nenapsaným) knížkám, ve kterých je zřejmý Kapuścińského cit pro detail a nastínění situace na malém rozsahu. Krom osnov se v knize vyskytují i další formálně zajímavé texty: dopis od funkcionáře Mosambiku, který se nemůže oženit; část textu o jihoafrické rasové segregaci je psán pásmem výroků různých osob; vyprávění o útěku přes bolívijský prales nahrané na magnetofonovou pásku; "slovník" slov z cest. Kapuścińského autentické a i emočně nabité vyprávění se například v reportáži o občanské válce v Alžírsku mění – text je odbornějšího rázu, autor zaujímá obecnější pohled, popisuje skutečnosti až analyticky. I tyto (a nutno říci, že velmi čtivě napsané) texty působí osvěžujícím dojmem, neboť pro méně znalého čtenáře mohou představovat klíč k chápání kontextu.
Autor tematizuje i svoji novinářskou práci a líčí nejistotu, nevyzpytatelnost a nebezpečí cest. Například v nigerijské reportáži Hořící zátarasy popisuje své zápolení s agresivním kmenem Jorubů, po němž ho na nebezpečí upozorňuje i sám šéfredaktor, kterému Kapuściński velmi horlivě posílá dosavadní informace o dění. Také se mnohdy vyskytne v nepříjemných situacích, když se vyskytuje na jednom území ze dvou soupeřích skupin/národů, je tedy ovlivněn svým okolím – i tak se mu daří podat skutečnosti objektivně.
Fotbalová válka dokazuje, že vracet se do minulosti stále nemusí být od věci, že minulost neznamená jen vytěžení atraktivních témat (druhá světová válka). Může jít i o neotřelý náhled do míst, která jsou čtenáři neznámá a vzdálená, přitom se na nich dějí věci, které si nedokážeme představit.

Byli tři. Chodili všude spolu a jezdili ve velkém zaprášeném chevroletu. Auto zastavilo před hotelem, bouchly dveře a na schodech zadupaly tři páry nohou. Klepali na dveře našeho pokoje, vstoupili a usadili se ve křeslech. Jestliže chodí tři lidé stále společně, v Polsku z toho samozřejmě ještě nic nevyplývá. Ale tři lidé v Kongu – to už může být politická strana.

(s. 47)

[Willy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boken påminner inte om någon jag läst tidigare och den bidrar med mycket kunskap på ett relativt få antal sidor. Kapuscinski blandar och ger, i vissa delar återfinns en humoristisk underton, poetisk klang och skarpa reflektioner, andra delar präglas av cynism och simpla, stereotypiska slutsatser. Till en början störde detta mig något men med tiden insåg jag att det snarare ökar bokens äkthet då prägeln av Kapuscinskis egna sinnestillstånd inte redigerats bort vilket gör boken mer mänsklig och därmed intressant.

[Caleb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not about soccer. Good book and interesting fella though. 3.5/5

[Antonio Pilati · Rating 5 out of 5]

Capolavoro di giornalismo e scrittura. Resoconti unici di fatti pazzeschi in Africa e America Latina. L'apice è la "guerra del calcio" fra Honduras e Salvador, ma lettura utile anche per conoscere meglio la realtà della decolonizzazione (Congo, Ghana) e dell'Africa degli anni 60-70. Molto interessante anche per capire il mestiere del giornalista all'epoca. Dirompenti la sua riflessione sul mal d'africa, l'accumulo di oggetti nelle case cilene, il ruolo della scrivania. Magistrale, per quanto solo lo spazio di una pennellata, la descrizione della guerra turco-cipriota e di quella arabo-israeliana del 73. Unico difetto, infatti, è che sarebbe stato bello se il libro fosse durato ancora di più.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant collection of essays on mid to late-20th century conflicts in Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Latin America. I'm convinced that the reason that, for the time, Ryszard Kapuściński had such a good understanding of colonialism was his upbringing in WWII Poland and Belarus and the unfurling of oppression and disappearances in his community.

Having thought this, for a long time, about him, he finally discusses it explicitly in the final chapter. Around a fire, in a village in Ghana, Ryszard talked with a young man, Kwesi. 'These were lucky countries', Kwesi said. 'They do not need to grow cotton, it falls from the sky.' The village elder asked, 'where are your colonies' and the reporter came to life: he talks of German camps, Soviet executions and districts, 'nur fur Deutsch'. But also of women tanning to be brown in the sun and the post-war rebuild and skis in the snow. I think he establishes the link round the fire... but this book also shows the profound differences for the 'third world'.

The essays work well because of this link, from the Congo to Algeria, the 'soccer war', Honduras and El Salvador and then on to Cyprus and Palestine, there's a clear logic to it - and a genuine excitement about nascent pan-Africanism and global anti-colonial movements. There are elements of his magical journalism, as in the creative license... but I think the discerning reader can see when and why he walks into imagined or exaggerated encounters. Also some interesting reflections on being close to war and the spectacle, which are quite similar to Sontag's ideas. I really can't recommend him more and this is definitely one of his best books. :)

[Shivaji Das · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays that individually didn't have enough material to make a whole book from (unlike his Imperium and Shah of Shahs). None the less, it has all the best elements of Kapuscinski reporting - immediacy, non-judgemental, and thoughtfulness. As ususal, he goes places that are quite a few notches uncomfortable than hanging around the Pentagon or Capitol for news snippets - coups and revolutions in Dahomey, Ogaden, Algeria. In a handful of pages, he manages to draw vivid portraits of Ben Bella, Nkrumah and Boumedienne. And in one page, he brings out the horror of death when he describes how a dying unconscious soldier is closely watched by his fellow men. One drawback is that in a handful of essays (on Nigeria, Congo), he is too distant from the centre of action. Perhaps these chapters were best left out to avoid diluting what is otherwise a magnificent showpiece for journalism. The English version also has a few editing errors (Ben Bella flying back from Oran to Algeria!)

[Pečivo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poté co jsem zdesetzdesetioval Impérium od Kapuczinskiho jsem se vydal do bazaru a nakoupil tam všechny jeho knihy, který jsem našel. A jako vždy jsem neudělal chybu. Chyby jsou totiž slipy a já nosím trenky. Jak se říká v Polsku - LOLEK!

Fotbalová válka jsou zápisky z autorova cest mezi lety 1960-1980 po světě. Jelikož taky hodně cestuji, tak jsem si říkal, že mu to teda zkontroluju. Musím konstatovat, že dobrý. Ghanau, JAR, Kongo, Chile, Honduras ani Salvador bych nepopsal lépe.

Pan Kapůčo popisuje situaci v daných zemích, kde působil jako korespondent v dobách maxim turbulenc (převraty, války a tak dále pana krále) a já posílám dalších 10/10. Tomu se říká novinařina! Kdyby se tohle dneska psalo v novinách, tak ty noviny budu i číst!

Moje oblíbená část je kapitola fotbalová válka v jižní Americe, kdy výsledky zápasů začínaly války - a moment kdy vedoucí věznice po vítězství Mexika propustil radostí 142 věznů. To ještě fotbal něco znamenal! Pelta zpět!