Vittoria

by Joseph Conrad, Enzo Giachino (Translator)

Overview

Il nome di Conrad è indissolubilmente legato ai mari e alle coste di mondi esotici. Questo romanzo, ambientato nello scenario suggestivo delle isole della Malesia, rese con particolare intensità, racconta una storia d'amore e di morte. Ne sono coinvolti Lena, giovane e sfortunata suonatrice di un'orchestra femminile a Surabaya; il barone Heyst, signore aristocratico troppo raffinato per la volgarità di questo mondo, «uomo che tutto disprezza e non crede in nulla»; e un variopinto campionario di farabutti. In una caccia senza respiro all'uomo e a un chimerico tesoro, entrano in scena avventurieri d'ogni risma: Jones, diabolico e freddamente razionale; Ricardo, dagli istinti belluini; Schomberg, personificazione di una malizia ottusa; Pedro, concentrato di forza bruta. Romanzo di un destino ineluttabile, Vittoria (1915) ha le apparenze del racconto di avventure a tinte forti, che Conrad prediligeva, ma è anche una sottile indagine sulle ambiguità del rapporto amoroso, e sulle violenze segrete che possono nutrirlo. E nell'analisi di questa zona d'ombra che Conrad risulta particolarmente vicino alla sensibilità del lettore d'oggi: là dove appunto descrive l'amore che degenera e si corrompe in tormento, tanto per chi ama come per chi vorrebbe, ma non sa piú amare. Prima edizione 1952 nei «Narratori stranieri tradotti».

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788858420720
Publisher:	EINAUDI
Publication date:	10/06/2015
Sold by:	GIULIO EINAUDI EDITORE - EBKS
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB
Language:	Italian

About the Author

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).

Date of Birth:

December 3, 1857

Date of Death:

August 3, 1924

Place of Birth:

Berdiczew, Podolia, Russia

Place of Death:

Bishopsbourne, Kent, England

Education:

Tutored in Switzerland. Self-taught in classical literature. Attended maritime school in Marseilles, France