I had read a lot about Ryszard Kapuscinski but never found any book by him except an article by him in a travel book I found recently. It was Granta Travel issue (No. 26) and I had felt glad when I found the book. But I haven’t read the article hoping to read it when I had a lot of time on hand. One doesn’t read good stuff casually without paying attention. Even before I could find the time to read Kapuscinski’s article I struck gold last Sunday. I actually found a book written by him. When I saw it I could barely contain my excitement. It was ‘The Emperor and Shah of Shahs’. I had never heard of this book but I knew it was a great find. I don’t know if it is, but I picked it up anyway. I got the book for fifty bucks. This was the only book I found on Sunday and the rest I picked up were magazines.
I was flipping through the book today and noticed that it was about two rulers- Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (The Emperor), and the Shah of Iran (Shah of Shahs) hence the title ‘The Emperor and Shah of Shahs’. Kapuscinski writes in Polish and the book I found was an English translation published by Picador. The book was in good condition with all pages including the cover intact. I am eager to read it as early as I can.
The rest of the haul consisted of magazines. I picked up three during the hunt that lasted nearly two hours. The first mag I picked up was a new magazine- Monocle (May 2007) which I got for forty bucks. The second was National Geographic Adventure (June/July 2006) for twenty rupees. The last find was a magazine I was looking for – Men’s Health Best Life (June 2006) which I got for only ten rupees. I will write about these magazines in the next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment