'A peculiar genius with no modern equivalent, except possibly Kafka' - Jonathan Miller

Regarded as a central part of Kapuscinski's work, these vivid portraits of life in the depths of Poland embody the young writer's mastery of literary reportage

When the great Ryszard Kapuscinski was a young journalist in the early 1960s, he was sent to the farthest reaches of his native Poland between foreign assignments. The resulting pieces brought together in this new collection, nearly all of which are translated into English for the first time, reveal a place just as strange as the distant lands he visited.

From forgotten villages to collective farms, Kapuscinski explores a Poland that is post-Stalinist but still Communist; a country on the edge of modernity. He encounters those for whom the promises of rising living standards never worked out as planned, those who would have been misfits under any political system, those tied to the land and those dreaming of escape.

'A masterpiece ... a moving image of post-war Poland, and the first breathing of one of the essential voices of the twentieth century... the master of literary reportage' The Times Literary Supplement

When the great traveller-reporter Ryszard Kapuscinski was a young journalist in the early 1960s, he was sent to write about the farthest reaches of his native Poland. The resulting essays brought together here reveal a place as strange as any of the distant lands he visited on foreign assignments: caught between ties to the past and dreams of escape, a country on the edge of modernity.

'Kapuscinski trascends the limitations of journalism and writes with the narrative power of a Conrad or Kipling or Orwell' Blake Morrison