Ryszard Kapuscinski
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Ryszard Kapuściński; March 4, 1932 – January 23, 2007) was a Polish reporter, journalist, traveller, photographer, poet and writer whose dispatches in book form brought him a global reputation. Widely considered a serious candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature during his lifetime, he is one of the Polish writers most frequently translated into foreign languages...
NationalityPolish
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth4 March 1932
CountryPoland
heart literature tradition
The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart.
past self assessment
There is a lack of critical assessment of the past. But you have to understand that the current ruling elite is actually the old ruling elite. So they are incapable of a self-critical approach to the past.
fall humble fighting
In the tropics the white feels weakened, or downright weak, whence comes the heightened tendency to outbursts of aggression. People who are polite, modest or even humble in Europe fall easily into a rage here, get into fights, destroy other people. . .
past government assessment
In modern Russia, you have no official, formal assessment of this past. Nobody in any Russian document has said that the policy of the Soviet government was criminal, that it was terrible. No one has ever said this.
independence months three
I remember that during the period leading up to independence in Angola in 1975, I was the only correspondent there at all for three months.
war hypocrisy long
Amin is the shame of the whole world. The fact that he managed to rule so long and commit so many crimes was only possible thanks to the hypocrisy of the East and the West who were waging the Cold War for world domination.
citizens fabric complicated
In the Russian experience, although the Russian state is oppressive, it is their state, it is part of their fabric, and so the relation between Russian citizens and their state is complicated.
keys liberty locks
Do not be misled by the fact that you are at liberty and relatively free; that for the moment you are not under lock and key: you have simply been granted a reprieve.
enemy tribes rebel
He killed his enemies because he was afraid they would kill him. Amin ordered entire tribes to be put to death, because he feared they would rebel.
arise crisis
When is a crisis reached? When questions arise that can't be answered.
people literature guidance
Literature seemed to be everything then. People looked to it for the strength to live, for guidance, for revelation.
ocean reality sake
The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say 'Africa'. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist.
home crowds revolution
If the crowd disperses, goes home, does not reassemble, we say the revolution is over.
past men vanity
in reference to Persepolis and all palaces, cities and temples of the past: could these wonders have come into being without that suffering? without the overseer's whip, the slave's fear, the ruler's vanity? was not the monumentality of past epochs created by that which is negative and evil in man?