Kapuscinski, Ryszard. Shadow of the Sun. Translated by Klara Glowczewska. Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.
Reason read: Kapuscinski celebrated a birthday on March 4th. Read in his honor.
The forty years of experiences of Ryszard Kapuscinski in Africa will excite and amaze readers. He shows a rare and profoundly deep respect for the cultures of the regions in which he traveled. As apparent in Shadow of the Sun, Kapuscinski writes in stunning clarity, whether it be describing trying to navigate a vehicle through a traffic jam of sleepy buffalo or watching mustached cockroaches the size of small turtles; killing a cobra sleeping in a roadside hut or holding his breath while an elephant meanders through camp. Even tackling more serious topics like Uganda’s decolonization and ultimate independence, the coup in Zanzibar, or the Tutsi/Hutu conflict is articulated with grace and respect.
Speaking of the Tutsi/Hutu conflict, a side note. I never thought about ideological training as a part of warfare. It is not widely discussed as a boot camp topic, but it makes sense. You need to indoctrinate your subordinates because it was clever to have every Rwandan Tutsi citizen guilty of murder; a crime committed by the masses.
They say the best artists suffer for their art. Kapuscinski has been jailed for his curiosity over forty times. He contracted cerebral malaria, which sounds pretty bad until you add tuberculosis to the mix.
As an aside, Francoise Huguier’s photograph for the cover of Shadow of the Sun is stunning.
Confessional: while reading Shadow of the Sun and Among the Believers I was getting myself confused with which book was which.
Quote that stopped me, “With each step I lose my confidence” (p 42). Been there. Here is another, there is nothing worse than this state of being neither at war nor at peace” (p 178).
Author fact: at the age of seventeen Kapuscinski wanted to be a poet. How does someone so young know they want to be a poet?
Book trivia: portions of Shadow of the Sun were previously published in the New Yorker.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Africa: Today and Yesterday” (p 9).
~*LunaSea*~ 