Shadow of the Sun

Ryszard Kapuscinski, communist Poland’s first roving correspondent, built his reputation on a blend of literary flair and reporting that began with a 1950s exposé of poor working conditions in a Soviet-style municipality, which earned him the Golden Cross of Merit at age 23. He leveraged that prominence into postings across Europe and Asia before securing his dream assignment to Africa in 1957, where he remained the sole Polish reporter on the continent for much of the next three decades. His new collection, Shadow of the Sun, gathers essays spanning his arrival in Africa in the late 1950s through roughly the late 1970s, covering post-colonial governments, coups, and warlords. Kapuscinski’s commitment was personal as well as professional: after contracting cerebral malaria in Uganda, he refused a doctor’s advice to return to Poland for treatment, fearing his government would never fund a return trip. The book matters as a literary record of a turbulent era few Western correspondents covered, and its minimalist style will draw readers assessing how much of the reporting is observation versus invention.