Granta | The Home of New Writing

Explore Essays and memoir

The Snow in Ghana

Ryszard Kapuściński

‘We always carry it to foreign countries, all over the world, our pride and our powerlessness.’ Translated from the Polish by William Brand.

Christmas Eve in Uganda

Ryszard Kapuściński

‘In fact, from the moment I spotted Amin, I made a point of neither accelerating nor slowing down – no turning or stopping.’

Outline For A Book

Ryszard Kapuściński

‘I have come home from Africa, jumping from a tropical roasting-pit and dropping into a snow-bank.’

Stiff

Ryszard Kapuściński

‘On the flatbed lies a coffin. Atop the black box is a garland of haggard angels.’

The Lazy River

Ryszard Kapuściński

‘One cannot compare the tropical forest with any European forest or with any equatorial jungle.’

A Tour of Angola

Ryszard Kapuściński

‘You have to learn how to live with the check-points and to respect their customs, if you want to travel without hindrance and reach your destination alive.’

Imperium

Ryszard Kapuściński

Ryszard Kapuściński, once the only foreign correspondent for the Polish Press Agency, on the concept of borders.

Warsaw Diary (Part Two: 1983)

Ryszard Kapuściński

‘History as class struggle? As a struggle of systems? Agreed: but history is equally the struggle between culture and the mob, between humanity and bestiality.’

When There is Talk of 1945

Ryszard Kapuscinski

‘All through the war I dream of shoes.’

A Warsaw Diary

Ryszard Kapuściński

‘In Poland we read every text as allusive; every situation described - even the most remote in time and space - is immediately applied to Poland.’

Who We’re Reading When We’re Reading Murakami

David Karashima

‘Luke believes that the early stories might not have been published if the author and translator were uncompromising.’

The Ghost in the Kimono

Raghu Karnad

Deep in the dense volume of Delhi’s history Raghu Kardad investigates ‘the remarkable, untold story of the Japanese in the Old Fort’.

Grandma Moore’s Cancer

Mary Karr

‘Those are only rumours of suffering. Real suffering has a face and a smell. And it knows your name.’

Laura Kasischke | First Sentence

Laura Kasischke

‘There really was a moth I found in a toolbox (not as musical or interesting as ‘strongbox’), alive, in the attic, in that box.’