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Ryszard Kapuscinski - The Shadow of the Sun
Kapuscinski has traveled on the African continent as a journalist since the late 1950's and
has seen and met a great variety of Africans. In this heartfelt book, he shares with his
readers some of the exciting experiences - from coup d'états to being lost in the
Sahara desert to being lost at sea - but always from below, from the viewpoint of a man who
was there, a man who sweated and starved. He also describes the traditional African values
and ideas and how these are applicable in modern Africa. In this way, the book would make
an interesting read for any traveler in Africa or student of contemporary Africa because
the African mindset and way of life are explicitly analyzed and commented. It seems to be
Kapuscinski's point of departure that you cannot understand Africa without understanding the
African and you cannot understand the African without understanding his culture and history
and thus he tries to explain these three elements - the African, his culture and his history -
to the European reader.
The book starts in Ghana in 1958 with a chapter named 'The Beginning' - not only the
beginning of the book, this was more importantly the beginning of independent Africa. Because
it starts here and proceeds through some the most important events in African history until
the 1990's, the book also becomes a useful history of post-colonial Africa: though Kapuscinski
is as concerned with things small and poetic as he is with the greater historical trends, and
although the book is primarily about his experiences in Africa, it does cover the
important events and gives a decent overview. Having an overview, however, implies having some
position above or beyond the subject to be understood and Kapuscinski rarely takes such a
position - often, the overview is created by the reader himself while Kapuscinski merely
presentes each subject.
That said, it is tempting to analyze the book as a postcolonial work and, indeed, some features
are reminiscent of other postcolonial works - the uncertain, inauthoritative narrator; the
setting in some non-Western space; the exploration of a culture alternative to the European.
While Kapuscinski is an European, he is a Pole and thus belongs to a colonized (rather than a
colonizing) people, making him better suited than most Europeans to write of postcolonialism.
To most Europeans, apparently, postcolonialism seems absurd and foreign. Hence, an author like
Kapuscinski may also seem somewhat ungraspable and may thus be subject for controversy. For
example some of his descriptions are reputed to be mere fantasies and some of his facts genuine
lies (I have yet to be shown any one of these blunders as they are mostly referred to in general).
To me, as to many Africans and former travellers to Africa, this does not matter: Kapuscinski has
succeeded where almost everyone else has failed (his countryman Joseph Conrad, for example, is an
exception), in describing nearly every aspect of life in Africa. That he has a large base of fans
among philanthropists and adventurers all over the continent - and among Africans worldwide - is
proof enough of his genius and this book takes its place among his best.
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Kapuscinski has traveled on the African continent as a journalist since the late 1950's and
has seen and met a great variety of Africans. In this heartfelt book, he shares with his
readers some of the exciting experiences - from coup d'états to being lost in the
Sahara desert to being lost at sea - but always from below, from the viewpoint of a man who
was there, a man who sweated and starved. He also describes the traditional African values
and ideas and how these are applicable in modern Africa. In this way, the book would make
an interesting read for any traveler in Africa or student of contemporary Africa because
the African mindset and way of life are explicitly analyzed and commented. It seems to be
Kapuscinski's point of departure that you cannot understand Africa without understanding the
African and you cannot understand the African without understanding his culture and history
and thus he tries to explain these three elements - the African, his culture and his history -
to the European reader.
The book starts in Ghana in 1958 with a chapter named 'The Beginning' - not only the
beginning of the book, this was more importantly the beginning of independent Africa. Because
it starts here and proceeds through some the most important events in African history until
the 1990's, the book also becomes a useful history of post-colonial Africa: though Kapuscinski
is as concerned with things small and poetic as he is with the greater historical trends, and
although the book is primarily about his experiences in Africa, it does cover the
important events and gives a decent overview. Having an overview, however, implies having some
position above or beyond the subject to be understood and Kapuscinski rarely takes such a
position - often, the overview is created by the reader himself while Kapuscinski merely
presentes each subject.
That said, it is tempting to analyze the book as a postcolonial work and, indeed, some features
are reminiscent of other postcolonial works - the uncertain, inauthoritative narrator; the
setting in some non-Western space; the exploration of a culture alternative to the European.
While Kapuscinski is an European, he is a Pole and thus belongs to a colonized (rather than a
colonizing) people, making him better suited than most Europeans to write of postcolonialism.
To most Europeans, apparently, postcolonialism seems absurd and foreign. Hence, an author like
Kapuscinski may also seem somewhat ungraspable and may thus be subject for controversy. For
example some of his descriptions are reputed to be mere fantasies and some of his facts genuine
lies (I have yet to be shown any one of these blunders as they are mostly referred to in general).
To me, as to many Africans and former travellers to Africa, this does not matter: Kapuscinski has
succeeded where almost everyone else has failed (his countryman Joseph Conrad, for example, is an
exception), in describing nearly every aspect of life in Africa. That he has a large base of fans
among philanthropists and adventurers all over the continent - and among Africans worldwide - is
proof enough of his genius and this book takes its place among his best.
