No sé si ha pasado el suficiente tiempo como para que Ébano sea considerado un clásico de la literatura, ya no de viajes, sino universal. En cualquier caso, lo será.

Kapuściński arroja luz y taquígrafos para todo un continente, que todavía hoy, sigue sumido en la más absoluta oscuridad. Y lo hace manchándose las botas: recorriendo los caminos más intransitables, desafiando los climas más adversos y, en definitiva, acudiendo allí dónde el peligro acecha.

Y es que la grandeza de Ébano va más allá de la crónica periodística, pues aquí se habla de lo grande y de lo pequeño; de cómo, cuándo y porqué estalla un golpe de estado, y también del día a día de un poblado inhóspito. No se limita a narrar, sino que intenta entender, y a fuerza que lo consigue.

En definitiva, Kapuściński abre una puerta al continente africano de inmenso valor para el lector, que seguramente no vuelva a verlo con los mismos ojos. Al menos, ese ha sido mi caso.

A partir de hoy, Ébano pasa a formar parte de ese selecto grupo de libros que recomendaré siempre.

10/10

I've read Theroux and Naipaul on Africa and the relatively unknown Ryszard Kapuscinski is every bit as good, and in some ways better.

As a correspondent for a Polish news organization that can't afford a correspondent, Kapuscinski brings a different perspective to his travels. While Theroux visits his old college pals, Kapuscinski lives and travels with the masses. In Africa, this puts him in situations where he can die of dehydration, thuggery, a stampede, TB or a malarial sweat.

The the brief histories of Rwanda, Liberia, the Tuareg and regime change in Nigeria are the best I've read. There are great descriptions that hint at the underlying reality of life in the market, a Christian church, train travel, insects, the roads and the lingering impact of slavery. You can feel the ever present heat, lack of resources and hunger.

Both the writer and translator present this and more in beautiful prose. This book is a gem.

”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.”

Ryszard Kapuściński crossed the African continent (and pretty much the rest of the world as well) several times. By living like a local, eating like a local, and getting malaria as a local, he got a unique perspective of everyday life.

The book consists of a number of articles set in different African countries at different time periods, from the late fifties and onwards. With an humble attitude and an open mind he really tries to understand, even if he can’t always explain.

“Our world, seemingly global, is in reality a planet of thousands of the most varied and never intersecting provinces. A trip around the world is a journey from backwater to backwater, each of which considers itself, in its isolation, a shining star. For most people, the real world ends on the threshold of their house, at the edge of their village, or, at the very most, on the border of their valley. That, which is beyond is unreal, unimportant, and even useless, whereas that which we have at our fingertips, in our field of vision, expands until it seems an entire universe, overshadowing all else. Often, the native and the newcomer have difficulty finding a common language, because each looks at the same place through a different lens. The newcomer has a wide-angle lens, which gives him a distant diminished view, although with a long horizon line, while the local always employs a telescopic lens that magnifies the slightest detail.”

I loved this book. It’s interesting, especially the parts dealing with the first post colonial years. The language is beautiful. And I certainly learned a lot. Read it!

"This is therefore not a book about Africa, but rather about some people from there (...) The continent is too large to describe. (...) Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say "Africa". In reality, except as geographical appellation, Africa does not exist."
So the foreword reads, and I was eager for an account that is described by Sunday Times as having been "written with love and longing, as sharp and life enhancing as the sun that rises on an African morning"
But, that was it. "The Shadow" in the title should have warned me!
The author goes ahead to weave a narration that depicts Africa as a barren, stifling hot, Malaria ridden, hunger stricken continent (truly in the stereotypical spirit of "Africa is a country"), full of lazy people who know nothing but poverty and desolation, whose days while by in vacant idle stares, as there's nothing to do in this godforsaken place anyway!
He claims to search for the "Real Africa", which takes him to the most horrible of the worst neighborhoods; pg. 109: I want to live in an African street, in an African building. How else can I get to know this city?- And since the affluent neighborhood is not African enough, he has to go to the overcrowded rat infested slum, where "real Africans" live. Those in Ikoyi aren't African enough -I mean, how can black Africans afford the same wealth as the Europeans, right?
He somehow manages to visit the poorest neighborhoods, most far-flung villages, hang out with the most desperate and wretched of all people, and then he goes ahead and casts them as representative of Africa/ns, going against what he promised in the foreword.
What's even more annoying is to have this piece of balderdash praised as "one of the finest books about Africa", "a beautiful and extraordinary book", "a marvel of humane, sorrowful and Lucid observation..." :(