Ryszard Kapuscinski, Polish master of literary reportage, dies

0 Comments | AFP, January, 2007

WARSAW (AFP) — Polish veteran journalist and author Ryszard Kapuscinski has died at the age of 74 in a Warsaw hospital, news television station TVN24 announced. During his long career as a writer, the globe-trotting Kapuscinski reported on wars, coups and revolutions in America, Asia, and particularly Africa, from where he drew inspiration for some of his best-known works, including "Ebony" and "The Emperor", about the last days of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie.

Born March 4, 1932 in Pinsk, in what is now Belarus, Kapuscinski skirted deportation to Siberia at the age of seven by fleeing with his mother, first to Lviv, now in Ukraine, and then to Warsaw, where he sat out World War II. After publishing his first poem at the age of 17, he turned to journalism. In 1950, after...