Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski) was a Polish-born English novelist who today is most famous for Heart of Darkness, which relates to his experiences in what was then the Belgian Congo.

Conrad left his native Poland in his middle teens to avoid conscription into the Russian Army which then occupied Poland.

He joined the French Merchant Marine and briefly employed himself as a wartime gunrunner. He then began to work aboard British ships, learning English from his shipmates.

He was made a Master Mariner and served more than sixteen years before an event inspired him to try his hand at writing.

He was hired to take a steamship into Africa, and according to Conrad, the experience of seeing firsthand the horrors of colonial rule left him a changed man.

‘The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it.’ – Polish / English novelist Joseph Conrad.

Joseph Conrad settled in England in 1894, the year before he published his first novel. He was deeply interested in a small number of writers both in French and English whose work he studied carefully.

This was useful when, because a need to come to terms with his experience, led him to write Heart of Darkness, in 1899, which was followed by other fictionalized explorations of his life.

He has been lauded as one of the most powerful, insightful, and disturbing novelists in the English canon despite coming to English later in life, which allowed him to combine it with the sensibilities of French, Russian, and Polish literature.

The Lure of the Sea: As a mariner and visitor to more than a third of the nations making up the Dark Continent, my favourite Joseph Conrad books included Lord Jim, Typhoon and Other Tales, Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard, and An Island Tale. PLEASE SHARE OUR STORIES ON SOCIAL MEDIA

THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL  ex-Liverpool seaman Michael Walsh, regular television, radio and newspaper personality. Bestseller: 70 stories and over 100 pictures. A first-hand account of the British ships, seafarers, adventures and misadventures (1955 – 1975). A tribute to the ships and seamen of the then-largest merchant marine in history. BOOK LINK https://tinyurl.com/3kuja2s5

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