Ryszard Kapuscinski | Polish author, 74

Ryszard Kapuscinski, 74, a Polish writer and journalist who gained acclaim for books chronicling the unrest in Africa and the Mideast, died Tuesday in Warsaw, his publisher said.

He died at Banacha hospital after heart surgery, said Marek Zakowski, president of the Czytelnik publishing house, which has published several of Mr. Kapuscinski's books.

"There is no one among Poland's writers to fill in the space left by him," said Zakowski, who knew the writer for more than 30 years.

Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez once called him "the true master of journalism."

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mr. Kapuscinski served as the sole Africa correspondent for the Polish Press Agency, reporting on the upheaval streaking across the continent as nations shook off colonial rule.

"The starting point is observation, travels, that which I see, that which I encounter, people, what I myself live through," Mr. Kapuscinski said in a 1994 interview. "But all of that is to be able to impart universal truths, to lead to wider reflection, historical reflection."

He went on to publish books such as The Emperor, which chronicled the decline of Haile Selassie's regime in Ethiopia, and was widely interpreted by Polish readers as a criticism of Poland's communist regime.

Three years later, he published Shah of Shahs, about Iran's 1979 revolution. Among other works were Another Day of Life, on the Angolan civil war; Imperium, about the waning days of the Soviet Union; and The Soccer War. - AP