Pocket Book Review # 2

In the Shadow of the Sun, by Ryszard Kapuscinksi



"The Soccer War" is an egaging and fascinating read, but "The Shadow of the Sun" is a masterpiece.

"The Soccer War" bounces all over, from Africa to Latin America, and occasionally Kapuscinski steps in with a journal entry on the Big Book he wished he'd written and that, perhaps, he thought he never would. It's great reading, but it's also a disparate collection.

All the stories in "Shadow" are set in Africa, which makes the work cohesive and coherent in a way that "Soccer War" is not. This collection of reportage is essentially a checkered history of 20th Century Africa, reported by an eloquent, thoughtful, and thoroughly engaging correspondent.

Colonialism in Africa reduced ten thousand entities to fifty, Kaupsinski writes, "but much of the underlying variety, this mosaic -- this shimmering collage of pebbles, bones, shells, bits of wood, pieces of tin, and leaves -- has remained. The more closely we stare at it, the better we see how the bits and pieces of this tableau change place, shape, and hue, giving rise to a spectacle staggering in its mutability, richness, and pulse of color."