Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski's is the most passionate, engaging and historically profound account of the collapse of the Soviet empire that I have read. Caustic and lyrical by turns, it is driven by that combustible mixture of love and loathing for their neighbour which Poles seem to have felt since the days of Mickiewicz. As in all of his previous work - The Soccer War, The Emperor, Shah of Shahs - Kapu?ci?ski (with the help here of Klara Glowczewska's translation) has raised reportage to the status of literature.

LRB 6 October 1994 | PDF Download