Poland`s Ryszard Kapuscinski, Writer and Nobel Nominee, Dies :: Charter'97 :: News

Polish foreign correspondent Ryszard Kapuscinski, who was among the writers favored to win the 2005 Nobel literature prize, died of a heart attack while recovering from surgery. He was 74.

Kapuscinski became popular in the 1960s for writing on history in the making, bringing to his Polish readers news articles packed with information, analysis and character portrayals from distant countries such as Ethiopia and Iran. His work was translated into more than 20 languages.

``For me, he was an outstanding writer rather than a reporter,`` long-time friend Janusz Drzewucki, editor in chief of Kapuscinski`s Polish publisher, Czytelnik, said today in a phone interview in Warsaw, where Kapuscinski died yesterday. Kapuscinski focused on a story`s ``meaning for the world`` rather than the need to write quickly, Drzewucki said.

Born in Pinsk, a once-Polish town that is now part of Belarus, Kapuscinski`s debut as an author was as a poet when still at school. He began writing articles as a history student in Warsaw. He was hired by the Polish news agency PAP in 1962 as a foreign correspondent and sent to cover the whole of Africa. He stayed for several years, until becoming ill with malarial meningitis.

When he recovered, he set off for the outer reaches of the then-Soviet Union, before returning to Africa. He also traveled widely in South America, Asia and the Middle East.

In 1978, he published ``The Emperor,`` on the atmosphere at the court of Haile Selassie and the last days of the Ethiopian leader`s reign.

Kapuscinski went on to write ``Shah of Shahs,`` depicting Iran`s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the 1979 revolution that led to his overthrow and the creation of the Islamic Republic. In 1993, Kapuscinski wrote ``Imperium,`` about the terror, the poverty and the ultimate fall of the Soviet empire.

``Can writing change anything?`` asked Kapuscinski at an international literature festival in New York two years ago. ``Yes, I deeply believe it can. Without this belief, I wouldn`t be able to write.``