Living up to the reputation

I've just finished The Soccer War by Ryszard Kapuscinski, a Polish journalist who died recently. He was a foreign correspondent for the Polish news agency from the late 1950s to 1980.

I'd heard great things about him from talk about his most recent book, Travels with Herodotus which might have come out posthumously - or at least posthumously in English. People were saying Kapuscinski was the best journalist author ever, which is high praise, and these were CBC types who don't throw around the superlatives lightly.

But after reading The Soccer Wars - indeed, while reading it, I can see why Kapuscinski is so well regarded. This is a book mainly focussing on Kapuscinski's time in Africa from the late 50s to the mid 70s, but there is some discussion of central America from which the book's title comes.

There are several interesting insights. Here's a cute story, not so much an insight, but as it's winter and I'm Canadian, I'm putting this in:

'They have snow there,' Kwesi said. Kwesi worked in town. Once, at the cinema, there was a movie with snow. The children applauded and cried merrily, 'Anko! Anko!' asking to see the snow again. The white puffs fell and fell. Those are lucky countries, Kwesi said. They do not need to grow cotton; the cotton falls from the sky. They call it snow and walk on it and even throw it into the river.

One apt insight Kapuscinski states regards United Nations personnel. He suggests they are pretentious, as they have a global perspective and as such look down on all local affairs. This is mentioned in the context of Kapuscinski trying to get out of Congo when his life - and the lives of a couple of Czechoslovakian journalists - were at risk. The UN officials weren't too interested in helping Kapuscinski, as they didn't want to take sides in the local affairs, even if doing so might save the lives of innocent lives. Sound familiar?

(Kapuscinski did manage to convince a UN official to help them, but only with a 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' argument)

This was an excellent book, and I'm going to read his others.