Book Bearings
Heart of Darkness
- 136 pages · about 2 hours
- First published 1899
- 553 editions
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1 About this book
On a boat moored on the Thames at dusk, the sailor Charles Marlow tells his companions about a journey he once made as captain of a river steamer for a Belgian ivory company in central Africa. Sent upriver to find Kurtz, the company's most successful agent, of whom strange reports are circulating, Marlow sees on the way the waste and cruelty of the colonial enterprise, and grows more and more curious about the man at the end of the journey. Joseph Conrad, who had himself worked on the Congo River, published the novella in 1899.
- Romance
- Classics
- Discovery and exploration
- Mystery
- Medicine
- Africa
- Voyages and travels
- Description and travel
2 What to expect
A short, dense novella: a sailor recalls taking a steamboat up an African river for a Belgian ivory company to find a brilliant agent who has gone beyond all restraint. It is an indictment of colonial greed and a study of what people become without limits, told in layered, brooding prose where atmosphere matters more than action. Its portrayal of Africans has been strongly criticized as dehumanizing, a debate that is now part of how the book is read.
Good for readers who want: a short modernist classic, a dark look at colonialism, and rich, atmospheric prose.
3 About Joseph Conrad
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
4 More by Joseph Conrad
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