Africa still is the forgotten continent for many of us. I though I had a decent knowledge about it, but this book helped me realise how little I knew, and probably still know, about Africa and its people, their different cultures, habits and religions.

"The Shadow of the Sun" is a mixture of travel adventures book and history book. The author, Ryszard Kapuściński, traveled through the continent for many decades, from the sixties (when he arrived there as the only foreign correspondent of the Polish Press Agency) to the nineties, and was a witness of many important historical events during those years.

This book is a collection of essays where he narrates some of his experiences when he was in Africa. For example, Kapuściński writes about the rise to power of Amin in Uganda, the civil war in Rwanda between hutus and tutsis, the first military coup in Nigeria, the Onitsha Market, the Tuaregs...

A really magnificent book.

my rating: