Born: March 4, 1932, Pińsk ,Poland (presently Pinsk, Belarus)
Died: January 24, 2007, Warsaw, Poland
Opinions. 1. “If you want just the facts, you go elsewhere. There are a lot of writers who can give you that. One goes to Ryszard Kapuscinski to penetrate to something deeper and stronger.” (Salman Rushdie, Vanity Fair); "Suppose we were to launch a spacecraft with the intention of establishing literary contact with the residents of some remote part of the galaxy. If we had room for only one contemporary writer, whom would we send? I'd vote for Ryszard Kapuscinski, because he has given the truest, least partial, most comprehensive and vivid account of what life is like on our planet." (Geoff Dyer, Guardian Book Review v. 02.06.2001); “One would like to quote entire pages of Ryszard Kapuscinski’s writings…" Translated from German (Sabine Vogel, Berliner Zeitung v. 29.01.2000)
2. The following was published by International Herald Tribune in an article from May 22, 2007 (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/22/europe/EU-GEN-Poland-Communist-Files.php): "...The Polish edition of Newsweek reported that Kapuscinski, who worked as a foreign correspondent for communist Poland's official state news agency PAP in the 1960s and 1970s, wrote analyses for the Polish intelligence service under the code name "Poet" and later "Vera Cruz" from 1967-1972...."Much more attention has been drawn recently to numerous exaggerations or half-truths by Kapuściński. For example, he apparently claimed to have met Che Guevara at a time when Che was already dead.Kapuściński was given an unflattering portrayal as the unmistakable model for the main character in Andrzej Wajda's 1978 film Without Anesthesia.
On 26 February 2010, a critical biography of Kapuściński was published in Poland: Kapuściński Non-Fiction, by Artur Domosławski.Kapuscinski's widow, Alicja Kapuscinska, had unsuccessfully sought an injunction against publication of the biography, claiming defamation and invasion of privacy.
Early days. His parents, Jozef and Maria, were teachers. His father, seconde lietenant of the Polish Army, fought in WW2, was captured by the Soviets, escaped and together with whole family moved to Sierakow in German occupied part of Poland. After the war Ryszard got his high school diploma in 1950 after finishing Gimnazjum Staszica in Warsaw. During 1952-1956 he studied history at Warsaw University. In 1953 he joined PZPR (Polish communist party) to which he belonged till 1981.
Career. Kapuściński was generally thought of as Poland's leading journalist. In 1962, after honing his skills on domestic stories, he "was appointed by the Polish Press Agency as its only foreign correspondent, and for the next ten years he was 'responsible' for fifty countries." He was trusted by the regime, who thought him suitable for the infinitely coveted job of a foreign correspondent, but his experience of the outside world completed his alienation and in 1980 he was a convinced supporter of Solidarity. Throughout this period, Kapuściński traveled around the developing world and reported on wars, coups and revolutions in the Americas, Asia and Europe. When he finally returned to Poland, he had lived through twenty-seven revolutions and coups. In the English speaking world, Kapuściński is best known for his reporting from Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, when he witnessed first-hand the continent's liberation from colonialism. Starting in the early 1960s, Kapuściński has published books of increasing literary craftsmanship characterized by sophisticated narrative technique, psychological portraits of characters, a wealth of stylization and metaphor and unusual imagery that serves as means of interpreting the perceived world. Kapuściński's best-known book, The Emperor (1978), concerns itself with the decline of Haile Selassie's anachronistic regime in Ethiopia. The person of the emperor discloses general mechanisms of a totalitarian system. Writing about the futile "development" plans of the emperor in his final years, Kapuściński was increasingly reminded of what was happening in his own country. This book was translated into 30 languages. Its 1979 theatrical adaptation was admired in Toronto, Amsterdam, Oslo, Budapest and in 1987 in London. Shah of Shahs (1982), on the fall of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, and Imperium (1993), about the last days of the Soviet Union, have enjoyed similar success. There is a revealing passage near the end of Shah of Shahs, in which he describes the Shah's "Great Civilisation" as a rejected implant. "The rejection ... once it begins, the process is irreversible. All it takes is for society to accept the conviction that the imposed form of society does more harm than good. Soon the discontent becomes manifest ... there will be no peace until the imposed, alien body is purged ... And yet there were noble intentions and lofty ideals behind the Great Civilisation. But people saw them only as caricatures." Kapuściński was fascinated not only by exotic worlds and people, but also by books: he approached foreign countries first through literature, spending months reading before each trip. He knew how to listen to the people he met, but he was also capable of "reading" the hidden sense of the scenes he encountered: the way that the Europeans move out of Angola, a discussion regarding alimony in the Tanganyikan parliament, the reconstruction of frescoes in the new Russia - he turned each of these vignettes into a metaphor of historical transformation. This tendency to process private adventures into a greater social synthesis has made Kapuściński an eminent thinker, and the volumes of his Lapidarium series are a fascinating record of the shaping of a reporter's observations into philosophical reflections on the world and people. Lech Kaczynski, the President of Poland said after his death: „That a great loss for Polish literature and for Polish culture.” Many leading journals- like New York Times, Le Monde or El Pais- wrote of his death on the first page. Kapuscinski was married and had one daughter.
Prizes and awards. 1959 Julian Brun Prize; 1974 Cross Polonia Restituta; 1975 Boleslaw Prus Prize, Miesiecznik Literacki Prize;1978 Prize of the weekly Kultura; 1979 Guest professorship in Caracs, Venezuela;1980 Kuznica honorary prize; 1983 The Emperor book of the year (Sunday Times);1989 Ksawery Proszynski Prize; 1993 Membership in Academia Scientiarium et Artium Europea, Salzburg (Austria); 1994 -1995 DAAD stipend (Germany), 1995 French Prix d’Astrolabe, Jurzykowski Prize (USA); 1996 Turzanski Fundation Prize (Canada); 1997 Prize of Odra, Prize of J.Pilsudski Institute (USA); 1999 Goethe Prize, Hamburg (Germany), Linde Prize, Named Polish reporter of the century; 2000 Premio Internazionale Viareggio Versilia (Italy), Prize of the Resistance Movement (Italy), Premio Internazionale Feudo di Maida (Italy), Creola Prize awarded by University of Bologna (Italy); 2002 Prix Tropiques 2001 from Agence française de développement (France); DHC from University of Wroclaw; 2002 DHC from University of Sofia (Bulgaria); 2003 Premio Grinzane Cavour (Italy), Prize of Prince of Asturia (Spain); 2004 DHC University of Gdansk, DHC Jagiellonian University, Bruno Kreisky Prize (Austria); 2005 Dariusz Fikus Prize, DHC University of Barcelona (Spain), Elsa Morante Prize (Italy), Gold Medal Gloria Artis.
Works which have been translated into English: Another Day of Life (Jeszcze dzień życia) (1976),The Soccer War (Wojna futbolowa) (1978), The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat (Cesarz) (1978), Shah of Shahs (Szachinszach) (1982), Imperium (Imperium) (1993), The Shadow of the Sun (Heban) (2001), Travels with Herodotus (Podróże z Herodotem) (coming soon; early 2007)
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