Author
Joseph Conrad
1857-1924
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British novelist who learned English in his twenties, spent years at sea, and wrote Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim and The Secret Agent.
Born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski.
Joseph Conrad was born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski on 3 December 1857 in Berdychiv, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. His father, a Polish writer and patriot, joined the resistance against Russian rule and was arrested, and in 1862 the family was sent into exile. His mother died in 1865 and his father in 1869, leaving him an orphan at eleven in the care of his uncle, Tadeusz Bobrowski.
At sixteen he went to Marseille to serve on French ships, and in 1878 he joined the British merchant marine, having most likely just begun learning English. He rose from crew member to captain, and became a British subject in 1886. A job in 1890 on the Congo River would inspire Heart of Darkness. In 1894 he gave up the sea, and his first novel, Almayer's Folly, came out in 1895 under the name Joseph Conrad. In 1896 he married Jessie George.
Heart of Darkness (1899), set in the Congo, contains bitter reflections on colonialism. Lord Jim (1900) is known for its anti-heroic central character, and in The Secret Agent he recalled the Russian Embassy in London, where he had gone many times to seek release from being a Russian subject. His early novels made him known as a teller of exotic tales, a misunderstanding that frustrated him, and popular success eluded him until Chance (1913).
Conrad died at his house in Bishopsbourne, Kent, on 3 August 1924. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters influenced writers from T. S. Eliot and F. Scott Fitzgerald to George Orwell and Graham Greene.
Sources: wikipedia.org
