Imperium

Description

Imperium is a classic of reportage and a literary masterwork by one of the great writers and witnesses of the twentieth century. With an Afterword by Margaret Atwood It is the story of an empire: the constellation of states that was submerged under a single identity for most of the century - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. From the entrance of Soviet troops into his hometown in Poland in 1939, to just before the Berlin Wall came down, as the USSR convulsed and died, Kapuscinski travelled thousands of miles and talked to hundreds of ordinary Soviet people about their extraordinary lives and the terror from which they were emerging.

Ryszard Kapuscinski was born in 1932. During his four decades of reporting on Asia, Latin America, and Africa, Kapuscinski witnessed 27 coups and revolutions and was sentenced to death four times. His books include The Shadow of the Sun, The Emperor, Another Day of Life, The Shah of Shahs and The Soccer War (which is also available from Granta Books).