Heart of Darkness

Resumen del libro

'The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, rage - who can tell - but truth - truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder - the man knows, and can look on without a wink'.

Marlow, a seaman, tells of a journey up the Congo. His goal is the troubled European and ivory trader Kurtz. Worshipped and feared by invaders as well as natives, Kurtz has become a godlike figure, his presence pervading the jungle like a thick, obscuring mist.

As his boat labours further upstream, closer and closer to Kurtz's extraordinary and terrible domain, so Marlow finds his faith in himself and civilization crumbling. Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" has been considered the most important indictment of the evils of imperialism written to date.

Biografía del autor

Nacido en 1857 en la Ucrania del Imperio Ruso de padres polacos como Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, Joseph Conrad se enroló como marinero en un buque francés a la edad de 17 años y cuatro más tarde lo hizo en un mercante inglés. Adoptó en adelante la lengua inglesa, en la cual escribió toda su obra, que continúa ejerciendo su fascinación sobre el lector moderno. Sus obras más populares son "El corazón de las tinieblas", que resuena en la película "Apocalypse Now" de Francis Ford Coppola, "Lord Jim" y "Nostromo", entre muchas otras. Falleció en 1924.