Polish Diary. "The Shadow Of The Sun" by Ryszard Kapuściński.

Like Sergiusz Piasecki, Ferdynand Ruszczyc and many others, Ryszard Kapuściński is one of those prominent Poles whose Belarusian roots are largely disregarded. However, while Piasecki favoured Belarusian settings for his criminal shenanigans of the 20s and Ruszczyc grew up and came of age in Minsk, Kapuściński's association with Belarus is nebulous in the extreme. What is there, really? A school, a two-storied building in Pinsk (which was a Polish city back in the 30s) and little else. Still, there was an odd satisfaction in the fact that my very first book by this great author and journalist was a Belarusian edition. 

The book, Black Tree ("Чорнае дрэва"), is a translation of the 1998 collection of essays titled The Shadow Of The Sun: My African Life. As is seen from the title, the book deals with Kapuściński's extensive experience of Africa from 1950s onwards. Some of the most exciting, violent and transformative decades in that continent's history when countries like Uganda, Eritrea, Rwanda and many others were ravaged by civil wars, bloodthirsty warlords and violent struggles for independence. Horrible, horrifying times - and yet these were the times that begged for the best journalists and reporters. One of those reporters was, of course, Ryszard Kapuściński who found himself at the very heart of African revolution. Kapuściński was a little known Polish journalist back then who really wanted to be inside that particular coalmine. In one of the very first stories here Kapuściński, poor but well-connected, is someone who belongs. A person who is willing to do anything to get onto a plane that will take him to another hot spot.

It is important to note that hot spots are, indeed, hot. Literally hot. Scorching hot, sizzling, blood-meltingly hot. In Africa, Kapuściński writes, you are constantly "moving towards the sun". "Heat stops blood-flow". "Human life relies on shade". These are just a few descriptions of what it feels like to be in an African town, the sort of place that should make people in Kapuściński's homeland happy that Polish weather can be so gruesome and so full of rain.

Kapuściński knows Africa, he understands it - and in order to get to the bottom of the continent and its people (inasmuch as that is actually possible), he never shies away from living in the poorest district (in a decrepit apartment which is constantly robbed), from eating with locals (which involves sitting in a circle in a shady room and eating rice with your bare hands), from taking treacherous journeys across the desert (which could easily result in sudden death from dehydration). He goes for the heart of Africa, and Africa pays him back. In these pages, you can actually witness Kapuściński's evolution as one of the all-time great reporters. His eye for the detail is astonishing, his storytelling is hair-raising. When he writes that "the trembling of malaria-stricken bodies was the only movement in the street", he horrifies and transfixes you. 

He goes for the heart of Africa, and Africa reveals its visceral self. In these twenty-nine essays, sketches, lectures, articles, reports, Kapuściński presents a three-dimensional image of the continent in all its true essence. Heat, malaria, thirst, snakes, crime, poverty - but also people whose primordial depth and intense simplicity are equally shocking and fascinating. Once again, Kapuściński gets really close to them as he discovers their complex religiosity and their peculiar sense of time (which is a lot more adventurous than whatever comes out of our watches and clocks). He untangles, or at the very least tries to, the complexities of the obscene ethnocides in Rwanda, and he explains how a simple hole in the ground could become a new hub of life. There are dozens of stories here, and every single one of them is worth hearing. 

The Shadow Of The Sun is, essentially, great literature. One could treat these essays as short stories, and they will work on that level as well. There is brilliant symbolism here (the black tree being the essential one), there is great tension (the fight with cobra is worthy of any thriller), masterful descriptions (Kapuściński truly captures the briskness of African sunset) and there is the ultimate deus ex machina at the very end of the book. When the elephant appears and scares everyone around, some see the animal as merely an elephant and some, well... there are those who see it as something a lot bigger than that.