The master of literary reportage reflects on the West’s encounters with the non-European throughout the ages

Ryszard Kapuscinski witnessed and reported major wars, coups and revolutions as they happened throughout the developing world and global South. In this distillation of his reflections accumulated from a lifetime of travel, he takes a fresh look at the Western idea of the Other: the non-European or non-American.

Looking at this concept through the lens of his own encounters in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and considering its formative significance for his own work, Kapuscinski traces how the West has understood the Other from classical times to colonialism, from the age of enlightenment to the postmodern global village. He observes how today we continue to treat the non-European as an a lien and a threat, an object of study that has not yet become a partner in sharing responsibility for the fate of the world. In our globalised but increasingly polarised post-9/11 age, Kapuscinski shows how the Other remains one of the most compelling ideas of our times.

Praise for The Other:
“Kapuscinski opens a sort of Pandora’s portal through which it is possible to access every imaginable Other, erotic, and exotic, sacred and profane, to define the inchoate Self.” — John Leonard, Harper’s

“Kapuscinski saw more, and more clearly … than nearly any writer one can think to name. Few have written more beautifully of unspeakable things. Few have had his courage, almost none his talent. His books changed the way many of us think about nonfiction.” — New York Times Book Review

“Eloquent … remarkably throughtful and compressed.” — Washington Post Book World

“An alternative journey through philosophy, history, and anthropology … a powerful, quasi-religious meditation on the power of humbling oneself in the face of the unknown.” — Independent

“Kapuscinski’s case for humanity to accept and acknowledge ‘otherness’ is cogent and invites further contemplation.” — Financial Times

Born in Pinsk (in what is now Belarus), the celebrated Polish foreign correspondent Ryszard Kapuscinski is the author of, among others, Shah of Shahs, Imperium, Shadow of the Sun and, most recently, the memoir Travels with Herodotus. His books have been translated into twenty-eight languages. He died in 2007.