Ryszard Kapuściński was a Polish reporter, journalist, traveller, photographer, poet and writer whose dispatches in book form, sometimes referred to as magical realism, brought him a global reputation. Widely considered a serious candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature during his lifetime, he is one of the Polish writers most frequently translated into foreign languages.
In an obituary published in Der Spiegel, Kapuściński was described by German journalist Claus Christian Malzahn as "one of the most credible journalists the world has ever seen". Daniel Alarcón, a Peruvian-American novelist, cited Kapuściński as a formative influence together with Dostoyevsky. The American journalist and reportage-writer Richard Bernstein, saw value in the "penetrating intelligence" of Kapuściński's vision and in his "crystallised descriptive" style of writing. The British journalist Bill Deedes, who had witnessed the Rwandan Genocide first-hand, said of Kapuściński that what he "writes about Africa is authoritative as well as captivating. His account of how the Hutus and the Tutsis were drawn into that dark night of genocide in Rwanda is the most enlightening I have read anywhere" – even while, at the same time, proclaiming that it was Kapuściński who had "transformed journalism into literature in his writings about Africa". Professor Philip Melling of Swansea University has concurred with this opinion, citing Kapuściński as an authority on the Rwandan conflict.
He was celebrated by other practitioners of the genre. The acclaimed Italian reportage-writer Tiziano Terzani, Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, and Chilean writer Luis Sepúlveda having accorded him the title "Maestro".
Since at least 1987 Kapuściński's veracity as a reporter has been disputed, and he responded with the explanation that his work had been allegorical. By his own account he chose to avoid dates, names, and orders of events. Since at least 2001, there has been literary debate about whether Kapuściński's work should be categorized as non-fiction or fiction.
A Warsaw Diary, in Granta [magazine], no. 15 (Cambridge, England, 1985)
A 1989 interview with Granta magazine founder Bill Buford. Reprinted in Adbusters Magazine #71.
Ryszard Kapuściński book Shah of Shahs
Shah of Shahs, Vintage International edition, p. 106
Attributed to an anonymous Iranian in Shah of Shahs, Vintage International edition, p. 3
