The Soccer War - With An Afterword by Bill Buford

"There is nothing worse than finding yourself alone in somebody else's country during somebody else's war"

The Soccer War or from original title Wojna futbolowa, first time when I saw the book title, I guess it is about soccer at least about soccer competition but I was wrong, it’s not only about soccer, it’s about the writer’s journey during his reportage in Third World, ‘the end of the world’, Africa and Latin America. Well, thank you Mr. Michael for allow me to borrow the book, I enjoy it because it adding my knowledge about the Third World and somehow I think it is almost the same thing in Sumba, like my Dutch friend said "Sumba, the end of the world" hehehe

This book written by Ryszard Kapuściński, he was appointed by the Polish Press Agency on 1964 as its only foreign correspondent, he had witnessed twenty-seven revolution and coups, his eye-witness account of the emergence of the Third World. The Soccer War is a series of snippets from conflicts around the world, sometimes focused heavily upon the war itself, and other times bemusedly observing the activities of confused peasants, scared militia, bewildered fellow-reporters, and minor officials. It is also intensely personal, though curiously without revealing much of his life back home in Poland. One suspects the reason for this is that Kapuściński didn't have much of life back home - he reported, he traveled, he brushed up against death so many times that I'd think it would become routine, though it never did. Wherever Kapuściński was, he wrote and wrote about the conflict, burrowing as deeply into the front lines as possible, sticking his head in where it did not belong.

I love what he said to Bill Buford in the end of his interview in order to answer Buford’s question:

How is this different from New Journalism – the work of Hunter S. Thomson, Joan Didion or Tom Wolfe – who also put a premium on the first person reporter? 

That’s an important question. And while I know nothing about New Journalism when I was in Africa, I can see now that New Journalism was the beginning for liquidating the border between fact and fiction. But New Journalism was ultimately just journalism, describing the strangeness of America. I think we have gone beyond all that. It is not a New Journalism, but a New Literature.

Why I am a writer? Why have risked my life so many times, come so close to dying? Is it to report the weirdness? To earn my salary? Mine is not a vocation, it’s a mission. I wouldn’t subject myself to these dangers if I didn’t feel that there was something overwhelmingly important – about history, about ourselves – that I felt compelled to get across. This is more than journalism.

He is really know about his passion, isn’t he? That’s what life about! Follow your passion!!!