Kazimierz Nowak

” src=”http://afrykanowaka.pl/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Zdjęcie-K.Nowaka-wykonane-w-Paryżu1-107×150.jpg” alt=”" width=”107″ height=”150″ />Kazimierz Nowak – an explorer, reporter and photographer. From 1931 to 1936, he travelled alone across Africa, from Tripoli to the Cape Agulhas and back to the North to Algiers.

He traversed a distance of 40,000 kilometers, mainly by bicycle but also on foot, horseback, canoe and camel. He described his five-year journey in impressive reportages, which were currently published in Polish and foreign newspapers.

The story of Kazimierz Nowak is unique, especially because of the fact that he recognized and described the culture and wildlife of Africa with great sensitivity, giving the indigenous people their due respect, against the colonial ideology. On the other hand, his reports are extremely authentic, without a hint of political correctness. That’s why he couldn’t count on any financial support from the colonial governances and he realized his trip by his own – very modest – financial resources, received from the fees earned working as a press correspondent and, from time to time, as a photographer.

The conditions of his journey were extremely difficult. Several times he miraculously escaped death, wandering in the desert, whether defending against attack by wild animals and finally drowning in the foaming water of the Kassai river. Only thanks to Kazimierz Nowak’s extraordinary fortitude his expedition finally ended successfully and he realized his life’s dream.

He never wrote the book by himself. Unfortunately he died a year after returning home from pneumonia. The illness was a complication of many tropical deases.

Łukasz Wierzbicki, inspired by the stories of his grandfather, who remembered Kazimierz Nowak from before the war, sought out and collected the reportages of the forgotten traveler, and he published them in a book edited by “Sorus” Publishling House in 2000. Six years later, Ryszard Kapuściński commented the first edition of the book in such words:

“I am concerned with the Kazimierz Nowak’s book “Across the Dark Continent by bicycle and on foot”. This book is quite unusual because of the content and the author, deserving much greater attention and wider resonance. This amazing thing turns into a permanent position in my lectures, talks, reflections on foreign reportage. I hope that this book will take a permanent place on the lists of Polish classics of reportage, whose strong supporter I become from this moment.”

For more details about the character and achievements of Kazimierz Nowak please visit www.kazimierznowak.pl.