GALO: When you write a book, what’s your goal? Is it to make people aware of something; to tell a story; to spur a change?

WJ: I never thought [that] I had to write a book to make people aware. That was my job as a journalist: to keep my readers informed about the countries I was writing about. With the book, I found that the only thing I could write about from northern Uganda were the problems of communication. Because how can you, as a grown up person, understand what these children felt when they were doing such adult things which you will never do? How can you understand and how can they [explain it to] you? When I talked with one of the boys, he told me about his first killing and his second killing, and the lady who was taking care of him told me that I could ask him more, because he was strong enough to tell his story. I asked him, “So how many people did you kill?” He said, “100.” He was telling me as if I was asking him, “How many goals [while playing soccer] did you score yesterday?” What did it mean, 100 — was it many? There are things happening that you cannot fully understand.

I wanted to tell a story, not to make people aware of something, not to warn them, just to tell people the story, because it seemed important to me.

GALO: For a long time you were writing for Gazeta Wyborcza. But you are not doing this any longer. Why?

WJ: I quit Gazeta Wyborcza in March. Why? Because I’ve got this stupid habit that I have to follow a story.

I had a situation where I was allowed to write about a very important election in Uganda, for example, and then there was no space for me to write who won the election. Such things were happening. At the Polish Press Agency, I’ve got this privilege that I can write about what I think is important, what matters to me, on a permanent basis. It’s not up to me if the stories will appear in the newspapers or not, but I have a clean conscience. And it gives me satisfaction and not frustration.

OK: Would Gazeta Wyborzca and the Polish Press Agency cover your expenses when you were traveling?

WJ: Whenever I’m a staff reporter, I don’t pay from my pocket. Even when I sign a contract with the publisher, I have one point in the contract that I have some funds for research. I’m in a lucky position.

The problem is that today it’s very difficult to be a staff reporter. They accept you as a stringer, as a freelancer, but you have to get to Afghanistan or Iraq. They will pay you for the story, and sometimes, they will give you back some expenses. It’s not very good for a freelancer.

This is the problem with these unfortunate accidents, especially in Libya. The freelancers, the stringers, they know that it’s the easiest [and] the shortest way to be famous, to have a chance at an assignment: to go to a war zone, to report something from the war zone, to sell it, and maybe they will be given an assignment. But the less money you have, the less security you have. If you have more money, like when I was going as a staff reporter, I always had money for better hotels, safe places; you mingle with people who have the same things. If we were supposed to share costs for a good translator, or even bodyguards, well, if you have nothing, how can we share? If you are a freelancer, you would say, “alright, I’ll take my risks, I’ll do it differently.” The freelancers compete with the staff reporters; they have to go very close, to touch even, because their material has to be better.

GALO: There are a couple journalists who’ve written books about the addiction of covering war, and how life is so boring once they get back. I’m wondering if for you it’s the same.

WJ: I never had this problem. I never get the feeling that I miss a war. I was always too afraid to miss these things. And I was lucky because after coming back from these trips, I was writing, I was telling the stories to my wife. But I know that my colleagues who were photo reporters, they ended up in the clinic last year, two of them. One was a very good friend of mine. He was with me on most of my trips. He has nightmares. There are two phenomena. First of all, yes, he wanted to go back, because for him it was something really worthwhile. And he got bored in Poland, in Warsaw, when his wife asked him to go shopping. His two marriages broke up, he had nightmares, and he had a drinking problem. He ended up in a clinic. The other one, from one of the wires, he also ended up there. But yes, especially with photo reporters, I think there is the feeling that they’re missing something.

It’s a problem. I would tell you that, if not for my wife, I wouldn’t have anyone to tell about my experience. Without this, I think it’s much more difficult.

OK: You mentioned that Ryszard Kapuściński is a guru for you, and you also mentioned Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. What other authors were important to you?

WJ: From Polish reporters and authors, Kapuściński definitely. Also, very important to me were the American writers. I mentioned Truman Capote but I would say that more important to me was Ernest Hemingway, the first writer I started to read in Poland. I was lucky because all his books were translated into Polish. And John Steinbeck as well as other writers from this generation: Caldwell, Dos Passos, and Faulkner, of course. I can’t tell you why, but the books by Steinbeck, I think that would be the peak of my writing career if I would be able to write something like Tortilla Flats. This is the weight of narration that I’d love to have as my own.

GALO: Finally, what are you working on now? What’s your newest book project?

WJ: It’s the first of two books. I plan to write about South Africa. It’s my South African story. It’s a book about a murder that happened two years ago. A white farmer, famous in South Africa, Eugene Terre’Blanche, who was the leader of a very rightist movement supporting apartheid, was killed by his two black farm-workers. That’s the beginning of the story, and I write about Terre’Blanche, about the murder, but also mostly about the city, the place where he lived, the small town of Ventersdorp. People didn’t change too much after the political revolution in South Africa. They were afraid of change like everyone was afraid of change. But on the other hand, they also had big hopes and expectations. They thought change would come from the outside. They were not prepared in themselves for change.

Another one will be about passion, and the main characters will be Nelson Mandela, who sacrificed everything for his political views and his political activity, and a guy who I met and who sacrificed everything for his passion for soccer. He pretended he was the inventor of the vuvuzela.

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