Book: Travels with Herodotus (Vintage International)
Author: Ryszard (Richard) Kapuscinski
Review by: Phil Bolton, publisher, Global Atlanta
I had never heard of Ryszard (Richard) Kapuscinski before receiving his book “Travels With Herodotus” from my brother-in-law the Christmas of 2016. Imagine a journalist with the writing skills of Graham Greene (or Joseph Conrad), the reportorial skills of George Orwell and the curiosity of David Livingston. He’s also got the courage of the Homeric heroes.
A Pole, Mr. Kapuscinski was born in 1932 and spent 40 years reporting in Asia, Latin America and Africa. He died in 2007.
It’s important to point out that he is Polish because as many a Pole knows there’s a horrifying downside to tyrants and extremists whether they come from the right or left sides of the political spectrum.
Mr. Kapuscinski introduces you to what it’s like to be tortured to death in Liberia (as its president, Samuel Doe, was) or to die from starvation in Stalin’s Ukraine because there’s no one left to eat. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Yes, he’s written many books. I only read five of them in 2017 with more to go.
If he can be faulted for putting the journalist as “the witness” on center stage, he balances this fault with the novelist’s gift that his personal role as witness is transcended into that of “everyman.”
He also has his critics because his reporting verges on “magical realism,” and is accused of layers of “pixie dust.” No reporter is perfect and we at Global Atlanta work hard to report on facts and personal experiences instead of fake news. But eye witness accounts seem to corroborate much of Mr. Kapuscinski’s reporting, if not all.
But why Herodotus? A Greek historian, Herodotus lived in the fifth century and Mr. Kapuscinski considered him a great reporter and his guide. Herodotus’ “Histories” are a record of the ancient traditions, politics, geography, and clashes of various cultures in the known world of his time. No less than Cicero called him the “father” of history.
Born in the Persian Empire, Herodotus had an upfront and personal view of the evils of garish, immoral and dictatorial tyrannies, which he contrasted with the aspirations of Greeks.
Strangely enough, I occasionally am reminded of the books of the Southern writer Walker Percy who as a doctor also had great diagnostic skills as he developed his novels. Mr. Kapuscinski had a gift for providing context.
Enough said? If you haven’t read any of his works, start now, like I did in 2017. And let’s all work to imagine and to create a better world in which to live.
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