Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was a Polish-British author. He did not speak English fluently until his twenties, but he came to be regarded a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote novels and stories that depict crises of human individuality in the midst of what he saw as an indifferent, inscrutable and amoral world.

Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew on his experiences in the French and British merchant navies to explore the effects of European imperialism and colonialism on the human psyche. Postcolonial analysis of Conrad's work has stimulated substantial debate. In 1975, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe published an article denouncing Heart of Darkness as racist and dehumanizing.