Will your risk your life to say the truth? Some journalists and writers have. Take Ryszard Kapuscinski whose non-fiction has the beauty of literary fiction.
“Take, for instance, his claim that during his time serving as a reporter and war correspondent, he witnessed twenty-seven coups and revolutions and was sentenced to death four times.”
For all his exposure to the horrors of war and regime change, Kapuscinski has a trademark way of dealing with facts. He doesn’t give us too many. No dates, no facts but his subject matter is real, a style that has been called ‘non-fiction magical realism’. The quotes in this essay are lucid and the message is loud and clear- writers become writers when they stop pandering to existing power structures. The writer’s loyalty should be only to the craft and nothing else.
Read What Is the Political Responsibility of the Artist? by Taylor Plimpton.
