World Literature, Literary Reference, Fiction Subjects

Le Frere-de-la-Cote

Name: Le Frere-de-la-Cote
Author: Joseph Conrad
ISBN: 9782820603999

by Joseph Conrad

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Overview

Ce roman d'aventures est la dernière oeuvre que Joseph Conrad conduisit à son terme. Peyrol, ancien forban, se retire sur le rivage méditerranéen, non loin de la rade de Toulon, dans une période troublée - l'action se déroule sous la Convention et le Consulat - où la paix à laquelle il aspire va lui être ravie par la force des circonstances. Sur la toile de fond mi-terrestre mi-maritime, se meuvent des personnages fortement individualisés, marqués par les événements de l'époque - rivalités politiques nationales, massacres de la Terreur, etc.

About the Author, Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad

Most readers know Joseph Conrad for creating Marlow's harrowing journey through the African Congo in Heart of Darkness. Conrad was adept at capturing the physical and cultural experiences he gleaned from 15 years at sea, but he also wrote political thrillers, essays, and plays based on his own short stories. His best works tend to be brief, but pack in a remarkable perspicacity about humanity's deepest faults.

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).