Product Description

One of the most brilliant journalists of the postwar world, Kapuscinski (born 1932) spent decades criss-crossing Africa, witnessing the horrors of a continent ravaged by imperialism and its aftershocks. Humane, evocative and magical, The Cobra's Heart makes the case for Kapuscinski as a great writer as well as a great journalist. Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64171 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

About the Author
Ryszard Kapuscinski was born in 1932 in Pinsk, a city that was formerly located in the Kresy Wscodnie (Eastern Borderlands) of the Second Polish Republic and now belongs to Belarus. He was Poland's leading journalist. He died in January 2007.

Customer Reviews

Not the best value
I give this 5 Stars for the content but all of it and much much more can be read in Shadow of the Sun and this was not made clear. Shadow of the Sun has many more stories in it so don't be fooled into thinking this is a different book. PS Ryszard Kapuscinski is an excellent writer and I highly recommend him.

Sample a great travel writer
An interesting concept by Penguin entitled "Great Journeys" ranging from Ancient Times via the Age of Discovery to 19th and 20th century adventurers which in a short set of extracts from the longer original work, follows the current trend of "quick reads" whereby authors efectively get "sampled" in helping the reader test if they are willing to follow up and buy the longer original. While older readers may baulk at this approach it will be interesting to see what response it creates.

This particular example from the great Polish travel writer on the Third World, Ryszard Kapuscinski probably works so well because all his books are effectively a series of mini essays with each chapter's topic and country continuously changing even where they have a general theme. This choice from the longer "The Shadow of the Sun" is a series of essays over the years on his visits to Africa that range from Ghana the first African colony to win independence in the 1950s through to an encounter with black magic in Western Uganda post Idi Amin taking power. Kapuscinski's main attraction as a writer is that he has always sought out the underclass and the underbelly of the locations he has visited as well as mixing with the leaders of the chosen location plus brings a practical political analysis to the issues, especially bearing in mind he was visiting as a journalist from a Communist country.

A very easy read and introduction which will hopefully make any new readers want to go and read his now many longer tomes on subjects ranging from the fall of the Shah in Iran to post Cold War Russia.

Boo,hiss to Penguin Books.
Not a dig at Mr.K-the material in the book is great-but Penguin didn't mention that it's all in "The Shadow Of The Sun".There's no original material in it at all!!
Buy "Shadow Of The Sun" instead-it's far better as you see the material in this in it's proper context.Indeed,buy anything by Mr.K,but avoid this.