| The Shadow of the Sun | |
| Title Orig: | Heban |
| Author: | Ryszard Kapuściński |
| Translator: | Klara Glowczewska |
| Publisher: | Czytelnik |
| Pub Date: | 1998 |
The Shadow of the Sun (Polish: Heban, literally "Ebony") is a collection of journalistic accounts and essays by Polish writer and journalist Ryszard Kapuściński. It was published in 1998 and by Penguin Books in 2001 with the English translation by Klara Glowczewska.
Kapuściński spent nearly 30 years, on and off from the late 1950s to the mid 1990s, in various African countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Liberia, reporting his accounts of different developments in those states.
Kapuściński's experience in Africa was unique, because he had the opportunity to stay with people of various classes in society, staying with ministers, as well as peasants in rural villages which gave him an honest perspective on what was the current situation of the continent.[1] Penguin Classics published a 100-page extract of "The Shadow of the Sun," in English in February 2007, as part of their "Great Journeys," series of short books highlighting 20 diverse historic examples of travel writing from antiquity to 2007. "The Shadow of the Sun" extract was published under the title "The Cobra's Heart," (ISBN 9780141025551).