An Outcast of the Islands (1896), Conrad’s second novel, is set in colonial era Malaya. Conrad’s white men from different nations are their own worst enemies. The native Malays take advantage of the whites’ aggressive and competitive natures in order to set them against each other.
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski) was a Polish author who, after settling in England and becoming a British citizen, wrote in English. Writing during the heyday of the British Empire and drawing on his native Poland’s national experiences and on his own personal experiences in the French and British merchant navies, Conrad brought a distinctly non-English sensibility into English literature.
Though he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties, Conrad is considered a master English language prose stylist. Early on literary critics appreciated both his fiction and non-fiction and he is now considered among the greatest novelists in English. An early modernist, Conrad’s narrative style, anti-heroic characters, and depiction of the trials of the human spirit in the midst of an indifferent universe have influenced many modern authors, including T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Graham Greene, and Salman Rushdie.
