A steamer captain in the heart of Africa witnesses the final days of a brutal ivory trader.
We've broken this book up into 17 short emails. Subscribe to this newsletter today, and you can finish it by Monday, January 27, 2025!
Originally published serially as a three-part story, Heart of Darkness is a short but thematically complex novel exploring colonialism, humanity, and what constitutes a savage society. Set in the Congo in Central Africa, the tale is told in the frame of the recollections of one Charles Marlow, a captain of an ivory steamer. Marlow’s search for the mysterious and powerful “first-class agent” Kurtz gives way to a nuanced and powerful commentary on the horrors of colonialism, called by some the most analyzed work at university-level instruction.