Almayer’s Folly, Joseph Conrad’s first novel, is a tale of
personal tragedy as well as a broader meditation on the evils of
colonialism. Set in the lush jungle of Borneo in the late 1800s, it
tells of the Dutch merchant Kaspar Almayer, whose dreams of riches
for his beloved daughter, Nina, collapse under the weight of his
own greed and prejudice. Nadine Gordimer writes in her
Introduction, “Conrad’s writing is lifelong questioning . . . What
was ‘Almayer’s Folly’? The pretentious house never lived in? His
obsession with gold? His obsessive love for his daughter, whose
progenitors, the Malay race, he despised? All three?” Conrad
established in Almayer’s Folly the themes of betrayal, isolation,
and colonialism that he would explore throughout the rest of his
life and work.
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