[Paperback]

This is why I read. I learned so much. My small naive brain became a smidge less naive.

Extremely entertaining and educational essays about many countries in Africa as they became independent.

One essay in particular floored me: ‘The Cooling Hell’ about Liberia. It was horrifying, shocking and captivating. I had no idea about these wars… but, then again, I knew next to nothing about any of the contents of this book.

It's interesting to see how few of my GR connections have read this author.

My adult kids and I stumbled on "The Shadow of the Sun" in the famous City Lights bookstore in North Beach, SF. We all read this book and we were hooked. What a find. I just introduced the author to my soon to be son-in-law. He works for USAID and is going to read this book before traveling to West Africa.

The last book I read by the author was Shah of Shahs. I had a friend at the gym, Ali, who was born in Tehran. He became a software engineer for IBM and traveled all over. But his last international assignment happened to be in Tehran during the 1979 revolution. He, his wife, and his mother got out just in time. I gave him Shah of Shahs to read. He said it made him cry.

No sé si es porque el libro tiene unos añitos pero me ha gustado muchísimo más Océano África de Xavier Aldekoa, una maravilla. Aún así, es interesante y ameno.

I have only read a few book by Kapuscinski, one of which was a Penguin Great Journeys book The Cobra's Heart, which is an excerpt from this book. I gave that five stars, and reading that book convinced me to buy more of this authors work, including this book, which I have finally made time for from my shelf.

This is probably Kapuscinski's best known book, and is his highest rated book on GR. Not without reason. This is 5 stars for me, and this was confirmed by about a third of the way through.
This book just reads well - it deals in detail, with some complex issues, but it doesn't get bogged down, and remains very easy to read, and very ... approachable, I guess. Perhaps this is a nod to the skills of the translator, as well as the author.

It is not a linear narrative book. It jumps around in time and in location. A chapter does not necessarily follow the one before, but sometimes they do. Kapuscinski is known for his reportage, perhaps more so than his books, and this book certainly displays an aspect of reportage, in that it can almost be read as a series of essays - some inter-related, but most not.

Geographically it covers many more countries than I had expected - my shelf list mentions each country that gets more than a passing mention. Kapuscinski obviously has an understanding of the peoples and the cultures, and he writes often with passion and emotion, but also at times with detachment - perhaps this comes from his reportage background too.

But not everyone is a fan. There are professional reviews of Kapuscinski's work where he is heavily criticised, including this book. The most critical is probably John Ryles review linked here. There are a number of points Ryle makes, some of which are unfair (eg calling Kapuscinski out on generalisation - I found the author goes out of his way to explain when he generalises at the start of the book, and from then on is careful to talk about specific tribes or countries), some are bizarre (his calling out of Kapuscinski over a statement about a bookshop - I reread that section to try to understand Kapuscinski's timeline - to me it could be anywhere from 1957 to just before publication in 1998, and therefore Ryle's argument that it isn't true at the time of his review is pointless), and some seem to be correct in that there are errors in Kapuscinski's text (there are a couple of mentions about women not being able to touch cattle). These last criticisms are minor, but nevertheless I have no defence for the author on these.

Irrespective of some minor failings on fact checking, which are surprising, but unfortunate, really enjoyed reading this book.
Some quotes I enjoyed:

“Only with the greatest of simplifications, for the sake of convenience, can we say Africa. In reality, except as a geographical term, Africa doesn't exist.”

"Dawn and Dusk - these are the most pleasant hours in Africa. The sun is either not yet scorching, or it is no longer so - it lets you be, lets you live."

"People are not hungry because there is no food in the world. There is plenty of it; there is a surplus in fact. But between those who want to eat and the bursting warehouses stands a tall obstacle indeed: politics."

“This is a very difficult terrain,” Father Johan admitted. “These people ask us how many gods there are in our religion, and whether we have a special god for cattle. We explain to them that there is only one god. This disappoints them. Our religion is better, they say; we have a special god who takes care of cattle. After all, cows are the most important thing!”

Last fall I read Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski, the Polish journalist. It was his final book (he died in January, 2007) and I enjoyed it very much, having recently read Herodotus' Histories upon which he draws extensively. So it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to reading earlier works by Ryszard Kapuscinski. As an introduction to the mosaic of life that is known as "Africa" The Shadow of the Sun did not disappoint. The book consists of loosely connected essays on the travels and specific experiences of the author interspersed with brief historical commentaries. The looseness of the content is linked together through recurring themes such as the Sun of the title, the importance of minerals and elements, such as water in the Sahara, and the pervasive violence of both nature and man. The latter is evidenced by the presence of "Warlords" in several countries and the recurrence of tribal attacks of blacks on blacks leading at one extreme to examples of genocide as happened in Rwanda. The ubiquity of oppression of one group upon other(s), again both black, was striking and the existence of black on black apartheid (before it ever occurred in the Republic of South Africa) was both illuminating and disillusioning.In a book as much about the plastic water container as the warlord and preferring the African shanty town to the Manhattan skyscraper as a monument to human achievement, what Kapuściński, the author of Shah of Shahs describes is not just Africa, which he claims does not exist except geographically, but more a distillation of life itself, through its religiosity, its trees, the frightening abundance of youth, sun that "curdles the blood" and terrorising, ruling armies that fall in a day. A couple of minor criticisms: the chronology in the book was uncertain at times, infuriatingly so; and, the book would have benefitted from a map for reference as the episodic quality of the content led the reader to and fro across the continent. Kapuscinski is an excellent writer and a literary journalist. He is also a brave man who went into places and faced situations that appeared quite dangerous. His readers benefit from his adventurous personality. This excursion into his world makes me even more interested in reading other examples from his oeuvre.

beginning with the jubilation surrounding Independence in Ghana and ending in Hell scapes of 90s Liberia and Eritrea, this is a fairly grim journalists travelogue in which most major countries of Africa are somewhat poetically described from the sixties through the mid-90s, notably absent being Congo and South Africa. good enough that I would read his other books

Kapuściński first went to Africa in 1957 and, over the next forty years, returned whenever he could.

He says ‘I travelled extensively, avoiding official routes, palaces, important personages, and high-level politics. Instead, I opted to hitch rides on passing trucks, wander with nomads through the desert, be the guest of peasants of the tropical savannah. Their life is endless toil, a torment they endure with astonishing patience and good humor.

‘This is therefore not a book about Africa, but rather about some people from there –about encounters with them, and time spent together.’

From Ghana to Guinea, Angola to Addis Abababa, he observed, analysed and wrote. I'm reading a biography of him now, and the reports of his early years would have been infused with socialist zeal for the causes of African nationalism emerging from colonialism. As well as immediate reports of events - wars, revolutions, coups - he wrote longer reports that analysed the background political, social and economic factors underlying immediate events. It's these, I suspect, that formed the basis for this book, because naive enthusiasm for radical change had, through experience, been replaced by a full awareness that the regimes of African rulers could be just as brutal and exploitative as those of outside occupiers, and in the case of rulers such as Idi Amn, far worse, than could have been imagined.

Kapuściński referred to his writing as 'literary reportage', setting it apart from routine agency journalism. The quality of his writing was exceptionally important to him, to the point where his output was often less than his employers would have liked.

This has been an important book for me to read, as I really know very little of Africa, apart from the outlines of its history and geography, and the wars, famines and violence that fill our news services. Certainly, the latter feature largely in The Shadow of the Sun, but Kapuściński does spend time away from the European enclaves in towns and cities, with 'ordinary people' and in the country areas where transport is almost non-existent.

Without transport, he emphasises, exchange is difficult and trade almost impossible. Poverty is inevitable in regions with no transport. Another one of those ideas that states the obvious, and shifts the way you see things ever after.

I borrowed a copy from the library, and have now ordered two copies - one for us and one for our son. I'd like to know if there is anything comparable that is more recent, that could look back on the last 15 years.

"Cư dân châu Phi là một mạng lưới khổng lồ, rối rắm, chồng chéo, phủ lên khắp lục địa, liên tục chuyển động, không ngừng dậy sóng, cụm lại ở chỗ này và tản ra ở chỗ khác, một mảnh vải sặc sỡ, một tấm thảm đầy màu sắc..."

Ryszard Kapuściński đã vẽ nên khung cảnh của lục địa đen bằng những câu văn đầy cô đọng và sắc sảo như vậy. Châu Phi hiện hữu trong ông không chỉ là một lục địa cần khám phá, đó còn là một nơi để hiểu. Và “Gỗ mun” là một cuốn sách khiến ta hiểu về lục địa này hơn bao giờ hết. Trong cuốn sách này, Kapuściński không còn là một lữ khách ghé ngang châu Phi để viết về những chặng đường, ông là một phần của châu Phi, ngay cả khi nó chìm trong biển máu của bạo loạn, đói khát và chết chóc.

Gỗ mun là một chuỗi 29 câu chuyện riêng biệt xuyên suốt các vùng đất ở châu Phi, bằng giọng văn đậm chất phóng sự với những quan sát hết sức tinh tế của Ryszard Kapuściński. Hơn 40 năm ở lục địa đen này đã mang lại cái nhìn mới lạ, không hề khiên cưỡng hay tỏ vẻ cảm thông với lục địa này, mà ngược lại, chính những người da trắng mới trở nên lạc lõng, xa rời tự nhiên.

Ông nhận định: “Chúng ta tạo ra phong cảnh của mình, còn phong cảnh nặn thành hình các đường nét trên gương mặt chúng ta. Người da trắng ở giữa những cây cọ và đám dây leo này, trong các bụi cây và rừng rậm này là một điều gì đó lạc lõng thừa thãi. Nhợt nhạt, yếu ớt, áo đẫm mồ hôi, tóc dính bết, anh ta luôn bị cái khát, cảm giác bất lực và chán nản hành hạ. Anh ta luôn luôn sợ hãi, sợ muỗi, a míp, bọ cạp, rắn - tất cả những gì cử động đều làm anh ta tràn ngập lo sợ, khiếp hãi, hoảng loạn.”

Trong con mắt của Ryszard Kapuściński, màu da không làm con người ta khác đi. Với ông, người châu Phi đặc biệt bởi họ “là một người từ khi chào đời cho đến lúc chết luôn luôn ở ngoài mặt trận, chiến đấu với thiên nhiên đặc biệt thù nghịch của châu lục mình, và chỉ riêng việc sống và biết cách tồn tại đã là chiến công lớn nhất của anh ta.” Có lẽ, chính vì thế nên ở đây không tồn tại khái niệm lịch sử như ta vẫn hằng biết đến. Nó được truyền “qua từng thế hệ, khi nghe phiên bản được truyền cho mình, lại thay đổi và tiếp tục thay đổi nó, làm biến dạng, sửa sang, tô màu cho nó”, để rồi cuối cùng, “lịch sử đạt đến hình thức trong suốt, tinh khiết nhất của mình: hình thức của huyền thoại”.

Hãy đọc cuốn sách này để hiểu thêm về một xứ sở bị lãng quên nhưng chưa bao giờ mất đi vẻ đẹp của riêng mình. Dù cho, thế giới đó ta không biết và có lẽ không bao giờ hiểu được, như bước chân hàng ngày trên con đường mòn của cô gái địu con nơi đây.

Цю книгу важко назвати класичним репортажем, бо тут дається доволі багато історичного контексту (я б назвала це радше подорожніми замітками). Після її прочитання відчуття абсолютного незнання африканського континенту стає всеохопним — і дійсно, як мало ми знаємо про той самий умовний "глобальний південь" з точки зору європейця. І це той випадок, коли потім хочеться гуглити, шукати, знаходити фільми, інтерв'ю і книги, вивчати — словом досліджувати

Miesiąc afrykański

4,5

Ryszard Kapuscinski was the foreign correspondent par excellence, someone who could simultaneously travel rough, report the story, appreciate and approach the local people on their own terms, and weave his experiences into a narrative of uncommon breadth and intelligence. And it's even more impressive when you realize he's covering Africa for the presumably shoestring Polish communist press. Books like these up the ante for book-length journalism, and show what an absolute shit job the puppets ensconced in the Times and the Post are doing.