My father first introduced me to the works of Ryszard Kapuscinski through The Emperor, Kapuscinski’s unnerving examination of Emperor Haile Selassie’s rule in Ethiopia told through the eyes of former members of Selassie’s court. With The Shadow of the Sun, Kapuscinski spreads his journalist reach throughout the continent of Africa revealing its mosaic of cultures, histories, tribal worldviews and indomitable geography. Kapuscinski is Poland’s most renowned journalist. First arriving in Africa in 1957, he lived there off and on for 40 years observing countless coups and managing to contract malaria as well as tuberculosis. Unlike most European visitors who kept to the safe, wealthy areas, Kapuscinski wanted to know how everyday people – tradesmen, bus drivers, medical aides – lived. In this book Kapuscinski describes the centuries old conflict between the Hutus and the Tutsis that resulted in the extraordinary genocide the world observed in the 90s. He writes of the fundamental differences in how people of different African tribes view themselves in relation to the rest of the world, and how these differences often lead to tragedy incomprehensible to the Western mind. Also revealing was the history of the former American slaves who founded Liberia in the early 1800s only to enslave the surrounding local population for the next 100 years.
