Heart of Darkness

Autorentext

Joseph Conrad (1857 - 1924) was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. He joined the British merchant marine in 1878, and was granted British citizenship in 1886. Though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he was a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an impassive, inscrutable universe. Conrad is considered an early modernist, though his works still contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced numerous authors and many films have been adapted from, or inspired by, his works. Writing in the heyday of the British Empire, Conrad drew on his native Poland's national experiences and his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world-including imperialism and colonialism-and that profoundly explore the human psyche.

Klappentext

2011 Reprint of 1902 Edition. Originally published in 1902 in the volume "Youth: A Narrative, and Two Other Stories," by Blackwood, London. "Heart of Darkness" is a novella that revolves around its main character, Charles Marlow, who also narrates most of the story. He is an Englishman who takes a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a river-boat captain in Africa. "Heart of Darkness" exposes the dark side of Belgian colonization while exploring the three levels of darkness that the protagonist, Marlow, encounters: the darkness of the Congo wilderness, the darkness of the Belgians' cruel treatment of the African natives, and the unfathomable darkness within every human being for committing heinous acts of evil. It is considered part of the Canon of Western literature.