Authors from Around the World: Poland
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The enduring struggle of one’s self-deception and inner conflicts, influenced by Conrad's sense of seclusion, inspired his stories and journeys worldwide, exposing the clashes, exploitation, and barbarity of Euro-African relations during the colonial expansionism of the 19th Century.
Considered controversial during his time and even today, Conrad's works, including Heart of Darkness, have inspired many creatives. From filmmakers and authors as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gabriel García Márquez, D.H. Lawrence, Joseph Heller, Albert Camus. After his parents gave up their lives fighting for Polish independence, a disillusioned young Conrad abandoned his native Poland, and he decided to travel on the high seas. As a sailor, he gained through his sweat and blood the life experiences and insight for sensitivity into the human condition necessary to produce the dozens of famous short stories and novels he wrote, many of which are still in print today.
Józef Teodor Conrad Korzeniowski, the only child, born to Evelina Bobrowska (1832–1865) and Apollo Korzeniowski (1820–1869) patriot, writer, and translator of authors such as Victor Hugo and William Shakespeare, born on 3 December 1857 in the Russian-occupied city of Berdyczów, Ukraine. Joseph would read their works and the work of Charles Dickens, among many others.
Conrad yearned to travel on the seas from an early age with a focus on the 'dark continent' of Africa in particular. With his uncle's blessing in 1874 and to avoid conscription by Tsarist Russia, Conrad journeyed to the bustling port city of Marseilles in southern France. A vital hub of the French Merchant Marine, Conrad quickly found employment with several French vessels over the next four years, beginning a fifteen-year career as a seaman. He would meet many of the men who would figure largely in his works during that time.
The challenging life at sea and its adventure had suited Conrad well. He was known to have an explosive personality; stopping at major ports the world over, working on every kind of vessel, gunrunning, and smuggling for a time, he would incur sizable gambling debts in the off-hours. Employed by the Societe Anonyme pour le Commerce du Haut-Congo in 1890, Conrad, at last, plunged into the 'dark continent' during which time he wrote his 'Congo Diary' that would later become The Heart of Darkness.
Conrad's literary career truly started in 1895 with the publication of his first novel, Almayer's Folly, an adventure set in the heart of the Borneo jungles. As the Century came to a close, he wrote two of his most renowned and lasting novels.
Lord Jim (1900) follows an outcasted young sailor who comes to terms with his past acts of cowardice on the path to becoming the leader of a small South Seas country.
Heart of Darkness (1902), a novella depicting the journey of a British man deep into the Congo of Africa, where he grapples with the cruel and mysterious Kurtz, a European trader who fancies himself as a ruler of the native people there.
For Conrad, the tragedy of loneliness is what the sea embodied. He was admired during his lifetime for the depth of his prose and his depictions of the dangers of a life at sea and the exotic places they reached. However, his early status as a masterful teller of vivid adventures at sea cloaked his fascination with the malevolence of human nature, the eternal battle of good and evil, and the herculean struggle of the individual in the face of nature's invariable unconcern, with unique skill and complex insight Conrad used an intensely personal vision to become one of the greatest English novelists.