 |
GetTextbooks.com
Compare Prices & Save up to 90% |
|
|
|
| Login | Sign up | Settings | My Wish List |
 | | The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski ISBN-10: 9780679779070 ISBN-10: 0-679-77907-8 ISBN-13: 9780679779070 ISBN-13: 978-0-679-77907-0 Paperback 2002-04-09 Vintage Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Poland's state newspaper. From the early days of independence in Ghana to the ongoing ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Kapuscinski has crisscrossed vast distances pursuing the swift, and often violent, events that followed liberation. Kapuscinski hitchhikes with caravans, wanders the Sahara with nomads, and lives in the poverty-stricken slums of Nigeria. He wrestles a king cobra to the death and suffers through a bout of malaria. What emerges is an extraordinary depiction of Africa--not as a group of nations or geographic locations--but as a vibrant and frequently joyous montage of peoples, cultures, and encounters. Kapuscinski's trenchant observations, wry analysis and overwhelming humanity paint a remarkable portrait of the continent and its people. His unorthodox approach and profound respect for the people he meets challenge conventional understandings of the modern problems faced by Africa at the dawn of the twenty-first century. | ||
Amazon.com Review When Africa makes international news, it is usually because war has broken out or some bizarre natural disaster has taken a large number of lives. Westerners are appallingly ignorant of Africa otherwise, a condition that the great Polish journalist and writer Ryszard Kapuœciñski helps remedy with this book based on observations gathered over more than four decades. Kapuœciñski first went to Africa in 1957, a time pregnant with possibilities as one country after another declared independence from the European colonial powers. Those powers, he writes, had "crammed the approximately ten thousand kingdoms, federations, and stateless but independent tribal associations that existed on this continent in the middle of the nineteenth century within the borders of barely forty colonies." When independence came, old interethnic rivalries, long suppressed, bubbled up to the surface, and the continent was consumed in little wars of obscure origin, from caste-based massacres in Rwanda and ideological conflicts in Ethiopia to hit-and-run skirmishes among Tuaregs and Bantus on the edge of the Sahara. With independence, too, came the warlords, whose power across the continent derives from the control of food, water, and other life-and-death resources, and whose struggles among one another fuel the continent's seemingly endless civil wars. When the warlords "decide that everything worthy of plunder has been extracted," Kapuœciñski writes, wearily, they call a peace conference and are rewarded with credits and loans from the First World, which makes them richer and more powerful than ever, "because you can get significantly more from the World Bank than from your own starving kinsmen." Constantly surprising and eye-opening, Kapuœciñski's book teaches us much about contemporary events and recent history in Africa. It is also further evidence for why he is considered to be one of the best journalists at work today. --Gregory McNamee | ||
Reviews | ||
A superb picture and analysis of contemporary Africa Ryszard Kapuscinski (d. 2007) was one of the great journalists of the last half of the 20th Century. In the English-speaking world, he may be the most famous and highly regarded journalist who wrote in a language other than English. Kapuscinski characterized his craft not as journalism but as "literary reportage." THE SHADOW OF THE SUN certainly exemplifies the distinction. THE SHADOW OF THE SUN is the product of four decades of work in Africa as a reporter for Polish media. But it is not the typical journalist's account. It is written with artistry, skill, and a very keen literary sensibility. (For my taste, however, Kapuscinski resorts to rhetorical questions to keep his narrative going far too frequently.) As fine as the writing is, the real reason for reading THE SHADOW OF THE SUN is for its content. It consists of about thirty chapters, a few of which follow one another in a continuous narrative, but most of which stand alone as vignettes or accounts of discrete incidents or journalistic missions in spearate countries across the African continent. Among the countries visited are Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia, Senegal, Ethipia, Liberia, Cameroon, Mali, and Eritrea. The composite effect is a compelling and sobering picture of Africa in the third of a century after the sudden dismantling of the colonial political structure. Although now ten years old (it was first published in Polish in 1998), I doubt that either the general picture or Kapuscinski's analytical insights are dated. Probably the single most memorable "take" from the book is that in that third of a century, Africa became even "poorer and more wretched." The book is replete with snapshots of that poverty and misery, replete with examples that lead Kapuscinski to write that "Life here is a constant struggle, an endlessly repeated effort to tilt in one's favor the fragile, flimsy, and shaky balance between survival and extinction." Kapuscinski also offers, analytically and almost dispassionately, many reasons why Africa remains so poor and wretched, most of which, of course, have their roots in the colonization and exploitation by the West. I second the opinion of others that THE SHADOW OF THE SUN is one of the very best books on Africa. Indeed, taking into account its readability and literary merit, it is, to my knowledge, the single best short book on that continent. | ||
One of my all-time favorites on Africa! As always, Kapuscinski sheds a unique and insightful light on African conflicts - from the civilian perspective. | ||
The best short book if you want to understand something about Africa This in my view is by far the best insight into what Africa is produced by a white man. Kapuscinski's perspective is different in that he is not from Britain, or France or other colonial power, or white man of Africa. He brings a different perspective to the usual selection of post-colonial literature. His skill of observation is incredible. After visiting and working in quite a few countries in Africa, I still find his perspective very insightful. His writing grabs you and you can't put down the book. If you want a short wise book, which reads easily and gives you a good idea of what Africa was/is ... this is the book. | ||
Mesmerizing I could not put this book down. Poetic, persistent, compelling, a beautiful and sobering book about the African experience in recent history. Based on this book I am eager to read every book he has published. | ||
Excellent if sober portrait of Africa Shadow of the Sun Excellent introduction to the African continent. The author's writing is clear and beautiful. He writes in a way that richly evokes the images and experiences that he is going through, but his writing is light and to-the-point, not burdened with unnecessary or long-winded description. A master of writing style. What also helps is that Kapuchinski truly has great insight into the people, systems, and cultures he encounters, and his experiences are truly unique and exciting because he was courageous enough to go where most white people did not. The only "flaw" of this book was, for me, the fact that the overall picture of the African continent and its people was rather depressing. One finishes this book and despairs a bit for the future of Africa. It is all understandable: such great poverty, such unjust leadership systems, such corruption and rule of brute force, such lack of education and learning...how can things ever get better? This feeling of desolation is what is leaning me against reading another of Kapuchinski's books, at least anytime soon. Moreover, although he wrote about lots of different places, the stories to some extent begin to sound very similar - they are mostly stories of brutality, oppression, injustice, poverty and hunger, lack of security, and random violence. Sure, the details of the "how" differ - but the "what" is quite similar. While I suppose that is the reality for a large part of Africa, I can't help feeling that once I have read one book like that, I already know to some extent what the next one will say. | ||