Book description
Nostromo, published in 1904, is one of Conrad's finest works. Nostromo
-- though one hundred years old -- says as much about today's Latin
America as any of the finest recent accounts of that region's turbulent
political life. Insistently dramatic in its storytelling, spectacular in
its recreation of the subtropical landscape, this picture of an
insurrectionary society and the opportunities it provides for moral
corruption gleams on every page with its author's dry, undeceived,
impeccable intelligence. Joseph Conrad was born in the Ukraine in 1857
and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. In 1874 Conrad travelled to
Marseilles, where he served in French merchant vessels before joining a
British ship in 1878 as an apprentice. In 1886 he obtained British
nationality. Eight years later he left the sea to devote himself to
writing, publishing his first novel,
Almayer's Folly
, in 1895. The following year he settled in Kent, where he produced
within fifteen years such modern classics as Youth, Heart of
Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, The Secret Agent
and Under Western Eyes
. He continued to write until his death in 1924.
