by Mariana Thieriot-Loisel | december 2013

Recently, during my journey in South African in March 2009, I discovered a book written by a very interesting journalist and photographer from Poland, who travelled all over the world, and particularly in Africa: Ryszard Kapuscinski. I bought the book in Cape Town and read it once while returning from Africa, and I warmly recommend it: The Other (Verso, London New York, 2008). I learnt that the author died quite recently, in 2007, and that this book was his last; it was translated after his death in 2008. I also read that a major part of his work was still in the process of being translated.

In his book, Kapuscinsky quotes very often the anthropologist Malinowsky and the philosopher Levinas. He speaks of the necessity of developing an anthropological view in journalism, and has a very interesting understanding of the concept of “the other”, and…