Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) was born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in Russian-ruled Ukraine, the son of Polish nationalists who were exiled for it and died of it before he was twelve. He went to sea at sixteen, spent twenty years in the French and British merchant marine and qualified as a master mariner, and only then began to write — in English, his third language, which he had learned in his twenties and always spoke with an accent nobody could place. The command of a Congo river steamer in 1890 broke his health and produced Heart of Darkness. His novels include Lord Jim, Nostromo and The Secret Agent.