Monika Wiszniowska

The African Books of Wojciech Jagielski change the perspective of writing about this continent. Following Ryszard Kapuściński, adopting his way of thinking about other cultures, he simultaneously proposes his own method of talking about Africa. On the one hand, Jagielski’s prose is an example of a new exotopy; on the other hand, the emphasis is not on exoticism: visiting and describing a place, the author wants his non-fiction not so much to carry an ethnographic tale as to show universal, all-human issues, all the more interesting, perhaps, because “extracted” from real biographies and events.

 

Jacek Hugo-Bader is an author of three reportage books attempting to make a literary description of modern Russia. His writing evolves – from a classical reportage to a search of a “more comprehensive form” transcending the schemes of travel reportage prose in which the cognitive function is predominant. The primary goal of his travel is a search for authenticity, a desire to experience the “real” Russian reality, but also to find a proper method of literary description of the experienced world. Due to this search, the reporter’s experience of writing about Russia became increasingly personal with each book, which is realized in the text through increasingly clearer revealing of autobiographic elements. In the works of the author of Biała gorączka, one can notice slowness and uncertainty of his vision of the world; not a wide perspective but a fragmentary and detailed observation. Thanks to this perspective, one can advance a thesis that the author’s creative assumption is continuous balancing between showing Russia as exotic and as close and familiar.

Review: Literatura gorszego Boga? Antologia polskiego reportażu XX wieku red. M. Szczygieł, Wołowiec 2014, t. 1, ss. 872, t. 2, ss. 960

Maciej Zaremba-Bielawski is one the leading Swedish publicists and writers of Polish origin, a reporter of the well-known Stockholm newspaper Dagens Nyheter, a prizewinner of prestigious Scandinavian journalist awards and peace prizes. He is a well-read and well-acknowledged author in Poland as well; all of his books are accessible to the Polish readership. The article investigates the influence of features characteristic for the Polish school of reportage on the oeuvre of the author of De rena och de andra: om tvangssteriliseringar, rashygien och arvsynd (On Eugenic Sterilisations in Sweden and elsewhere), in particular in connection with his latest book titled Huset med de tva tornen (A House with Two Turrets). Firstly, the article attempts to identify its genre traits, leaning towards the claim that it is a literary reportage woven around an autobiographic tale. Secondly, the article tries to highlight these traits of Huset med de tva tornen which confirm the thesis about the literary character of reportage and the use of patterns developed by the Polish authors of reportage books. The literary character of the discussed book is noticeable in the humanist approach of the author, understood as the reflection not only on the condition of humankind and world, but also on his own attitude towards the topic, as well as posing deliberate questions about the place and the role of values in the world. It is seen in the deliberation contained in Huset med de tva tornen, which is a multidimensional reflection on Polish history, fate of the Polish Jews, anti-Semitism as well as first and foremost memory.

The purpose of my work is to present the influence that Ryszard Kapuściński had on the shape of the genre itself as well the impact it made on the younger generation. I performed the comparative study using texts written by modern authors. The cognitive value of my work relies on the indication which of Kapuściński’s theoretical assumptions refer to the form of modern literature journalism, including those one can find in his books that influenced the works of such authors like Wojciech Jagielski, Paweł Smoleński, Wojciech Tochman or Mariusz Szczygieł. I argue that some poetical elements (e.g. the skilful use of stylistic media), adequate to the challenges presented in the book as well the personal signature of the text, reflectivity, humility and respect to reliable knowledge discovered in Kapuściński’s books, became the pattern that has resulted in varying results realised by younger adepts of literature journalism.