The first casualty

Some years ago, I was included in a round- robin from a group of African writers trying to whip up support for an anti-Ryszard Kapuscinski campaign. The plan, as I recall it, was that members of the African intelligentsia should loudly denounce the legendary Polish reporter’s depiction of their continent at the readings he was due to give during a US book tour.

I ignored the email, which had the tang of a witch-hunt. The determination of a group, whose members presumably embraced the principle of free speech, to crush a colleague’s work had echoes of the Rushdie affair. A colleague, what was more, who was old, ill and clearly reaching the end of his productive life.

I’d be curious to know whether those campaigners felt any more kindly towards Kapuscinski after reading this superb biography. They just might, for Domoslawski has pulled off a feat all biographers aspire to but few manage.