The Shadow of the Sun discussion

I read Travels With Heroditus earlier this year and really enjoyed it. I think I might also enjoy The Shadow of the Sun - happy reading!

Becky wrote: "I read Travels With Heroditus earlier this year and really enjoyed it. I think I might also enjoy The Shadow of the Sun - happy reading! "

Travels with Herodotus is not Kapuscinski's best. (In fact, I didn't like it.) You need to read The Soccer War, Shah of Shahs, and Shadow of the Sun.

Shadow of the Sun and The Soccer War are superb, but as with all of Kapuscinski's work, you need to read them with one eye firmly on who was paying his wages. Nevertheless, he captures the human side of war and poverty like few others ever managed. If the rules could be bent, I'd swap his work with Shakespeare's as my Desert Island Discs choice.

"BEST Book by RYzsard Kapuscinsky "" Another day of Life " ---- describes the atmosphere on the Day of the SUDDEN ILLTIMED PANICKY Exit of Portugal from Angola in 1975. Best Book in that genre Ever !!!! i wonder why such books are Never recommended for Nobel or Booker ? Instead of stale onles by others ??

Heban/Ebony is not for Novel prize recommendation, but it shows the life of lowest of the low at our planet, without any pathos, just the way they are.
Based on his writing I have come up with two short stories of my own. I don‚t know if anybody would read them and I have never been outside the Balkans, Africa is enigma for me, so writing about it could be construded very ill, but who knows!

SerjeantWildgoose wrote: "Shadow of the Sun and The Soccer War are superb, but as with all of Kapuscinski's work, you need to read them with one eye firmly on who was paying his wages. Nevertheless, he captures the human si..."

Could you please elaborate on what you mean by this, thanks.

Hi Benjamin. First off, can I say that Kapuscinski is one of my favourite authors and having worked in many of the places he wrote about, his writing continues to evoke the very strongest of memories for me. However, when he was carrying out the majority of his traveling and reportage he was an employee of the Polish state press agency and, during the early years for Polityka. While these would both have been regarded as 'liberal-leaning' by the communist standards of their time, they aligned their coverage firmly within the constraining boundaries allowed by the Polish communist authorities.

But in his books, not reports Poland as Socialistic country behind the curtain didn‚t exist. He wrote those some years later. There is strong anti-Soviet movement in Poland since 1980 movement - Samoopredeljnje - Self govern
I must say have read only one of his books and I have not even close experience like you of Africa but lot of state of mind in Eastern European socialistic past.

Jovan wrote: "But in his books, not reports Poland as Socialistic country behind the curtain didn‚t exist. He wrote those some years later. There is strong anti-Soviet movement in Poland since 1980 movement - Sa..."

Hi Jovan, I was in the Balkans myself on-and-off over a few of your more troubled years. It is a shame that Kapuściński did not write of this beautiful region and its peoples; might he not have helped us all understand each other's humanity a little better and perhaps hold ourselves back from some of the bloodshed?

I am a child of the 60s and grew up with many of the things that Ryszard writes about appearing on the nightly news. As a young adult in the 80s I watched - as we all did - the rise of the the anti-Communist movements in Poland. While some of Kapuściński's books were published after the fall of the Communist regimes across eastern Europe, including The Shadow of the Sun, that book was compiled from several trips that he made to Africa during his years as a reporter for the Polish state press agency long before the transition to democracy in 1989.

A British writer called John Ryle who worked extensively in Brazil and East Africa during the 80s and 90s was critical of Kapuściński's work, suggesting that it bore little comparison to the realities he encountered as a relief worker. He (Ryle) went on to argue in 2001 that The Emperor, written in 1978, was so far from the truth that it might, perhaps, have been Kapuściński's own allegorical criticism of the Communist authorities in Poland.

SerjeantWildgoose wrote: "Hi Benjamin. First off, can I say that Kapuscinski is one of my favourite authors and having worked in many of the places he wrote about, his writing continues to evoke the very strongest of memori..."

Thank you for the clarification.

Best,

Ben