The Other [Paperback]

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

In this distillation of reflections accumulated from a lifetime of travel, Ryszard Kapuscinski takes a fresh look at the Western idea of the Other. 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 non-European from classical times to the present day. He observes how in the twenty-first century we continue to treat the residents of the Global South as hostile aliens, objects of study rather than full partners sharing responsibility for the fate of humankind.

In our globalised but increasingly polarised world, Kapuscinski shows how the Other remains one of the most compelling ideas of our times.“In this short, simple, extraordinarily intelligent book, Kapuściński explores what it is to be European, to be non-European, to be colonised, to be the coloniser, to have or to impose an identity.”
—Jason Burke,Observer

“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

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

“The true master of journalism.”
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“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

Born in Pinsk (in what is now Belarus), thel๓&