Conrad, Joseph – Biography

Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Poland, in 1857. His original name was Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski. He is best known for his novels Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904) and The Secret Agent (1907) and the short story Heart of Darkness (1902). Typical for his works is deep pessimism, he writes stories of men in extreme situations and like in Heart of Darkness about a man who finds himself drawn to a savage whom is the only should despise.

He first became familiar with English language at the age of eight when his father translated works of Shakespeare. Joseph went to school in Cracow and Switzerland but what he really wanted to do was go to the sea. In 1874 he went to Marseille to get a job on a ship. The following years he spent sailing around the world, for example to East Indies, where he was involved in gunrunning. He gambled a lot, had huge debts and even attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chest. In 1878 he landed for the first time in England and spent the next 16 years in the British merchant navy. In 1886 he became a British citizen. The experiences from his life as a sailor greatly influenced his writing. However, since child, he had always wanted to go to Africa. 1889 he travelled to Congo and became a captain of a Congo river steamboat. “What he saw, did, and felt in the Congo are largely recorded in “Heart of Darkness”, his most famous, finest, sand most enigmatic story, the title of which signifies not only the heart of Africa, the dark continent, but also the heart of evil – everything that is corrupt, nihilistic, malign – and perhaps the heart of man. The story is central to Conrad’s work and vision, and it is difficult not to think of his Congo experiences as traumatic. He may have exaggerated when he said “Before the Congo I was a mere animal”, but in a real sense the dying Kurtz’s cry. “The horror! The horror!” was Conrad’s. He suffered psychological, spiritual, even metaphysical shock in the Congo, and his physical health, was also damaged: for the rest of his life, he was racked by recurrent fever and gout.” Conrad returned to England in 1891 and worked as a sailor for the last time in 1894. His first book Almayer’s Folly was published in 1895 and the next year An Outcast of the Islands. Conrad’s best novels are considered to be Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), and Under Western Eyes (1911). He rejected the knighthood from Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. The same year Conrad died.