The Queen's Reading Room

Heart Of Darkness

By Joseph Conrad

Recommended By Edna O'Brien

I often reread Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. His depiction of the African continent is eerie, capturing the stillness, the mute spell of the forest, and the pervading horror in the person of Mr Kurtz, the personification of the colonian subjugation.
~ Edna O’Brien

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Publish Date: 1899

Drawing from Conrad’s own experience in the Congo, this powerful and enigmatic novella tells the story of Charlie Marlow, captain of a river steamer setting out for the heart of the African continent in search of the mysterious Kurtz, an almost legendary colonial agent who has fallen ill and descended into madness. It is a journey into the darkest side of human nature, illustrated by the horrors of Western colonialism.

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