Recommendations from our site
“English was not Conrad’s first language but he wrote better in English than almost any of us can. I sense that the way he’s written this is very much in sympathy of an artificial colonial administrative structure that is foisted on another culture and then what horrors unfold as a consequence.” Read more...
The best books on Displacement
Michelle Jana Chan, Novelist
“The principal character is a river boat captain. The story starts at the lower reaches of the Thames and a yarn amongst old sailors about this guy Charles Marlow who is out of work but through relatives in Brussels gets a job as a river boat captain on the River Congo. The previous captain was killed by natives in a row over a chicken and the boat was incapacitated. Marlow finds the boat and there is a marvellous account of putting it together again and descriptions of the people he meets from the trading company and their ambition and their rapacity. He gets the boat going. And there is talk of the agent who produces more ivory than all the others, whose name is Kurtz. And it becomes a mission to find Kurtz and when he finds him, he finds that Kurtz has gone completely mad.” Read more...
The best books on Reportage and War
Martin Bell, Foreign Correspondent
