Angola - Another Day of Life

Book #3: Another Day of Life - Ryszard Kapuściński

"In 1975, Angola was tumbling into pandemonium; everyone who could was packing crates, desperate to abandon the beleaguered colony. With his trademark bravura, Ryszard Kapuściński went the other way, begging his way from Lisbon and comfort to Luanda - once famed as Africa's Rio de Janeiro - and chaos. Angola, a slave colony later given over to mining and plantations, was a promised land for generations of poor Portuguese. It had belonged to Portugal since before there were English-speakers in North America. Angola was brusquely cut loose, spurring the catastrophe of a still-ongoing civil war. Kapuściński plunged right into the middle of the drama, driving past thousands of haphazardly placed check-points, where using the wrong shibboleth was a matter of life and death; recording his impressions of the young soldiers - from Cuba, Angola, South Africa, Portugal - fighting a nebulous war with global repercussions; and examining the peculiar brutality of a country surprised and divided by its newfound freedom."

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When I started this challenge, one of my friends suggested that I start a corresponding blog. I was unsure - mostly because I'm not a literary critic, but also because I didn't know how I would handle discussing a book that I didn't really like. After all, who am I to judge an author who is writing about his or her own experiences in a country that I've likely never even visited? 

Well, three books in and here we are. I really didn't like this book. I didn't hate it either. I just didn't connect with it the way I did the first two. On further reflection, I think it's because Kapuściński is a reporter - and a foreign-born one, at that. His writing style reflects this. The book reads a bit like a news report. I just didn't feel like I was *there*. (And if you're asking yourself why I selected a book from a non-native author, it turns out there's very little alternative. There are simply not many English-language books from Angola.) 

That said, I did learn a lot about what was happening in Angola in the mid-1970s - a subject I knew nothing about before starting the book. Which, ultimately, was my main goal going into this project. Learn something! Check.