Charles Marlowe is hired by a Belgian firm to lead an expedition up a major African river to find and rescue a remarkable European man believed to be in danger. Marlowe's progress through the dense jungle is hampered by equipment and supply failures, sly sabotage and open hostility by both petty colonial officials and enraged natives. His story becomes a saga of danger, cruelty, and madness.
Like Maximilian Kolbe, the inspiration behind the creation of Block 11 Books, Joseph Conrad was a Pole, born in Ukraine in 1857. He emigrated to England, and though he never spoke English without a strong accent, he had a major influence in modern English literature because of the mastery with which he wrote in that language. He portrayed his characters, settings, and scenes with realistic accuracy and frank explorations of the human capacity for indifferent organizational barbarism.
Heart of Darkness is a compelling condemnation of the violence of colonialism in a grim nineteenth-century adventure story about a journey down an African river to rescue a crazed adventurer. It has also been condemned for the racist language and attitudes of the characters, realistic for the era and the central purpose of the book.