Lyn Elliott's Reviews > The Shadow of the Sun

Kapuściński first went to Africa in 1957 and, over the next forty years, returned whenever he could.

He says ‘I travelled extensively, avoiding official routes, palaces, important personages, and high-level politics. Instead, I opted to hitch rides on passing trucks, wander with nomads through the desert, be the guest of peasants of the tropical savannah. Their life is endless toil, a torment they endure with astonishing patience and good humor.

‘This is therefore not a book about Africa, but rather about some people from there –about encounters with them, and time spent together.’

From Ghana to Guinea, Angola to Addis Abababa, he observed, analysed and wrote. I'm reading a biography of him now, and the reports of his early years would have been infused with socialist zeal for the causes of African nationalism emerging from colonialism. As well as immediate reports of events - wars, revolutions, coups - he wrote longer reports that analysed the background political, social and economic factors underlying immediate events. It's these, I suspect, that formed the basis for this book, because naive enthusiasm for radical change had, through experience, been replaced by a full awareness that the regimes of African rulers could be just as brutal and exploitative as those of outside occupiers, and in the case of rulers such as Idi Amn, far worse, than could have been imagined.

Kapuściński referred to his writing as 'literary reportage', setting it apart from routine agency journalism. The quality of his writing was exceptionally important to him, to the point where his output was often less than his employers would have liked.

This has been an important book for me to read, as I really know very little of Africa, apart from the outlines of its history and geography, and the wars, famines and violence that fill our news services. Certainly, the latter feature largely in The Shadow of the Sun, but Kapuściński does spend time away from the European enclaves in towns and cities, with 'ordinary people' and in the country areas where transport is almost non-existent.

Without transport, he emphasises, exchange is difficult and trade almost impossible. Poverty is inevitable in regions with no transport. Another one of those ideas that states the obvious, and shifts the way you see things ever after.

I borrowed a copy from the library, and have now ordered two copies - one for us and one for our son. I'd like to know if there is anything comparable that is more recent, that could look back on the last 15 years.