Essay
The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat
Cesarz
Ryszard Kapuściński · 1978
Synopsis
After the overthrow of the Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie, a reporter makes his way to Addis Ababa, where the army is still consolidating its power, and secretly meets former courtiers and servants of the palace. Their monologues describe the rites and hierarchies of a court where all advancement depended on imperial favour: the little Japanese dog Lulu on the sovereign's lap, the panthers fed raw meat during the morning walk, the ministers who speak into his ear, a master who neither reads nor writes anything. Then comes the slow decomposition of the regime.
Context
The author went to Ethiopia in 1974, while the army was still consolidating its power, to question the emperor's servants and associates; he has said that he found his book in a valet's sentence about the sovereign's little dog. The book appeared with Czytelnik in 1978. Polish readers saw in it an allegory of Edward Gierek's regime, a reading taken up by Western critics on the English translation of 1983; a historian of Ethiopia reproached them with ignoring the book's real subject.
Who it is for
One hundred and sixty-four pages of reported monologues; the share of testimony and that of literary reconstruction are debated.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the great books of reportage; translated as early as 1983 and 1984 into Italian, English and French.
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