Joseph Conrad

Nostromo Joseph Conrad

Nostromo (full title Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard) is a 1904 novel by Joseph Conrad, set in the fictitious South American republic of "Costaguana". In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Nostromo 47th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "I'd rather have written Nostromo than any other novel." Nostromo is often regarded as Conrad's best novel. Conrad set his novel in the mining town of Sulaco, an imaginary port in the western region of the imaginary country of Costaguana. The book has more fully developed characters than any other of his novels, but two characters dominate the narrative: Senor Gould and the eponymous anti-hero, the "incorruptible" Nostromo. A gripping tale of capitalist exploitation and rebellion, set amid the mist-shrouded mountains of a fictional South American republic, employs flashbacks and glimpses of the future to depict the lure of silver and its effects on men. Conrad's deep moral consciousness and masterful narrative technique are at their best in this, one of his greatest works.