The Soccer War

The Soccer War is Kapuscinski's extraordinary chronicle of war in the late twentieth century.  Between 1958 and 1980, working for the Polish Press Agency, Kapuscinski covered twenty-seven revolutions and coups in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.  The Soccer War is part diary and part reportage, a cogent and emotionally immediate recounting of the stories behind his official press dispatches--accounts of the frightening, grotesque, and absurd aspects of life during war.  In these twenty-one pieces, Kapuscinski describes the overthrow of Algerian president Ahmed Ben Bella in 1965, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, life in Ghana in the early years of Kwame Nkrumah, the deaths of Patrice Lumumba and Che Guevara, the 1970 "Soccer War" between El Salvador and Honduras, and many more scenes of international conflict.  Translated by William R. Brand

"Kapuscinski is the conjurer extraordinary of modern reportage.  The Soccer War is a splendid example of his magic."--John le Carre

"A remarkable collection--part memoir, part history, part journalism...writing of rare penetration and humanity."--The Chicago Tribune

Contents

The Hotel Metropol
From the Streets of Harlem
Plan for a Book that Could Have Started Right Here
Lumumba
The Party Chairmen
The Offensive
More of the Plan of a Book that Could Have Been Written
Marriage and Freedom
The Child-Support Bill in the Tanganyikan Parliament
Algeria Hides Its Face
A Dispute Over a Judge Ends in the Fall of a Government
The Burning Roadblocks
The Plan of the Never-Written Book that Could Be, Etc.
High Time I Started Writing the Next Unwritten Book...
The Soccer War
Victoriano Gomez on TV
High Time Continued, or the Plan of the Next Unwritten Book, Etc.
Boots
There Will Be No Paradise
The Ogaden: Summer '76
Dispatches