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The Shadow of the Sun

The Shadow of the Sun

Author(s): Ryszard Kapuscinski

Location(s): Africa

Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs

Era(s): Second half of the 20th Century

Location

Content

‘Only with the greatest of simplifications, for the sake of convenience, can we say Africa. In reality, except as a geographical term, Africa doesn’t exist’. Ryszard Kapuscinski has been writing about the people of Africa throughout his career. In a study that avoids the official routes, palaces and big politics, he sets out to create an account of post-colonial Africa seen at once as a whole and as a location that wholly defies generalised explanations. It is both a sustained meditation on themosaic of peoples and practises we call ‘Africa’, and an impassioned attempt to come to terms with humanity itself as it struggles to escape from foreign domination, from the intoxications of freedom, from war and from politics as theft.

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Book Reviews

Lead Review

“Kapuscinski doesn’t just ‘cover’ Africa — he knows it. His perspective is both vast and uniquely informed.” — Keith Wilson, “Focus”

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