"As powerful a condemnation of imperialism as has ever been written, and still a deeply unsettling read more than a century on." -Phil Mongredien ; The Guardian
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the Heart of Africa.
Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between what Conrad calls "the greatest town on earth", London, and Africa as places of darkness.
Central to Conrad's work is the idea that there is little difference between "civilised people" and those described as "savages"; Heart of Darkness raises questions about imperialism and racism.
Heart of Darkness has been widely re-published and translated into many languages. It provided the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Heart of Darkness 67th on their list of the 100 best novels in English of the twentieth century.
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