Ryszard Kapuscinski - The Shadow of the Sun

So the elephant sauntered about, looked at the set tables, at the flickering lights, at the motionless people. One could see by his movements, by the way he swayed his head, that he was hesitating, that he hadn’t yet reached a decision. This went on and on, seemingly forever, an icy eternity. At a certain moment I intercepted his gaze. He was watching us attentively, heavily, and in his eyes was a profound, unwavering sadness.

Finally, having made his rounds of the tables and the clearing several times, the elephant left us, simply walked away and was swallowed up by the darkness. When the ground ceased rumbling, and the dark grew still again, one of the Tanzanians sitting next to me asked: “Did you see?”

“Yes,” I answered, not quite daring to move yet. “It was an elephant.”

“No,” he replied. “The spirit of Africa always appears in the guise of an elephant. Because no other animal can vanquish an elephant. Not a lion, not a buffalo, not a snake.”

Everyone walked in silence to their huts, and the boys snuffed out the lights on the tables. It was still night, but Africa’s most dazzling moment was approaching — the break of day.

Ryszard Kapuscinski, Poland’s most celebrated foreign correspondent, was born in 1932. After graduating with a degree in history from Warsaw University, he was sent to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to report for the Polish news, beginning a lifelong fascination with the Third World. During his four decades reporting on Asia, Latin America, and Africa, he witnessed twenty-seven coups and revolutions and was sentenced to death four times.

His earlier books— Shah of Shahs (about the Iranian Revolution), The Emperor (about the fall of Ethiopia’s Haile Selassie), Imperium (about the fall of the Soviet Union), Another Day of Life (about the end of Portuguese Angola), and The Soccer War (a compendium of reportage from the Third World) — have been translated into nineteen languages.