Picador Books
3 total works
In Shah of Shahs Kapuscinski brings a mythographer's perspective and a novelist's virtuosity to bear on the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, one of the most infamous of the United States' client-dictators, who resolved to transform his country into "a second America in a generation," only to be toppled virtually overnight. From his vantage point at the break-up of the old regime, Kapuscinski gives us a compelling history of conspiracy, repression, fanatacism, and revolution.Translated from the Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand.
'This is a very personal book, about being alone and lost'. In 1975 Kapuscinski's employers sent him to Angola to cover the civil war that had broken out after independence. For months he watched as Luanda and then the rest of the country collapsed into a civil war that was in the author's words 'sloppy, dogged and cruel'. In his account, Kapuscinski demonstrates an extraordinary capacity to describe and to explain the individual meaning of grand political abstractions.
"The Emperor", Haile Selassie: King of Kings, Lion of Judah - the absolute ruler of Ethiopia for 44 years, and possibly one of the most corrupt leaders of our time. The author, one of Poland's leading foreign correspondents, interviewed former members of the Emperor's inner court to produce this book which is a study of the man and his absolute power. "Shah of Shahs" begins in Iran in 1980. The revolutionaries have taken charge and in a deserted Tehran hotel, the author tries to make journalistic and human sense of the mass of notes, tapes, and photographs he has accumulated during his extended stay in Iran. The book offers a luminous synthesis of factual reports, impressions, and reflections offering readers a portrait of the psychological state of a country in revolution.