Warsaw 1928/ Printed by Gebethner & Wolff/ first edition/15x22cm/s.123/ ten black and white illustrations by Kamil Mackiewicz/ binding, half leather, gilt titling on spine, pasted original publisher's cover, very good condition, minor soiling of single pages
Pre-war reportage on Africa, with illustrations by outstanding illustrator Kamil Mackiewicz
In 1928, a Polish sailor, Tadeusz Debicki, enlists on the Belgian steamer Mateba. In doing so, he fulfills his dream of traveling to Central Africa, and brings his readers an impressive report, sparkling with details.
Debicki is enthralled with nature, but spares no realistic details: the searing heat, the stench of burnt oil, the fumes of coal, the murderous work of Congolese in unloading cement - we observe colonial realities up close.
Above all, the author of "At the Gates of the Congo" amazes us with his openness. As one of the few witnesses of his era, he sympathizes with the black Congolese: 12-year-old boys working in the furnace-hot hold of a steamship, carrying endless crates of dynamite and bags of cement, punished by flogging for dropping a barrel of nails.
Debicki describes exploitation, robbery, slave labor, racism and hubris - phenomena that Europe will only see in a few decades.
"If every civilization has a tendency toward narcissism," Mariusz Szczygieł wrote after Kapuściński in The Anthology of Polish Reportage, "then Debicki the reporter and Debicki the visitor behaved in Africa like someone who has no intention of being a narcissist.