Author: Joseph Conrad
- Fiction
- Ediciones Barataria
- ISBN: 9788495764744
- Release Date: 11-01-2012
Synopsis
In Joseph Conrad’s first novel, the old Scottish captain Tom Lingard, who has discovered an unexplored region of Borneo on the banks of the Pantai River where he trades in rattan and rubber with the natives, takes the young Dutch trader Kaspar Almayer under his wing. Almayer marries Lingard’s adoptive daughter, a native Malay, and himself has a daughter, Nina, whom he loves dearly. His plan is to find a fabulous gold mine lost in the jungle and then to make his way to Europe in Nina’s company. Nina, however, has fallen in love with Dain Maroola, the son of a powerful local maharaja. Conrad’s tense narrative juxtaposes the petty and insignificant plans of man with the unprejudiced, unyielding, and immutable laws of nature.
En esta primera novela de Joseph Conrad, el viejo capitán escocés Tom Lingard, quien ha descubierto una zona inexplorada en la isla de Borneo a orillas del río Pantain donde comercia el ratán y el caucho con los nativos malayos, se asocia en el negocio con el joven holandés Kaspar Almayer. Almayer se casa con la hija adoptiva de Lingard, una malaya nativa, y juntos tienen una hija, Nina, a quien Almayar quiere tiernamente. Su plan es conseguir una fantástica mina de oro en el interior de la selva y escapar luego con Nina hacia Europa. Nina, sin embargo, se ha enamorado de Dain Maroola, el hijo de un poderoso maharajá local. La tensa narrativa de Conrad yuxtapone los planes mezquinos e insignificantes del hombre con las leyes imparciales, implacables e inmutables de la naturaleza.
Joseph Conrad was an English novelist of Polish ethnicity. He is the author of Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Typhoon, and Under Western Eyes.
Biography
Joseph Conrad (originally Józef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski) was born in the Ukraine in 1857 and grew up under Tsarist autocracy. His parents, ardent Polish patriots, died when he was a child, following their exile for anti-Russian activities, and he came under the protection of his tradition-conscious uncle, Thaddeus Bobrowski, who watched over him for the next twenty-five years. In 1874 Bobrowski conceded to his nephew's passionate desire to go to sea, and Conrad travelled to Marseilles, where he served in French merchant vessels before joining a British ship in 1878 as an apprentice.
In 1886 he obtained British nationality and his Master's certificate in the British Merchant Service. Eight years later he left the sea to devote himself to writing, publishing his first novel, Almayer's Folly, in 1895. The following year he married Jessie George and eventually settled in Kent, where he produced within fifteen years such modern classics as Youth, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes. He continued to write until his death in 1924. Today Conrad is generally regarded as one of the greatest writers of fiction in English -- his third language. He once described himself as being concerned "with the ideal value of things, events and people" in the Preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus he defined his task as "by the power of the written word ... before all, to make you see."
Author biography courtesy of Penguin Group (USA).
