Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness has unsettled generations of readers with its haunting portrait of colonialism and the brutal exploitation of African lives. Peter Kuper's graphic adaptation reimagines this singular masterpiece for a new generation. Illustrated to evoke early twentieth-century woodcuts, Kuper's Heart of Darkness confronts Conrad s famously ambiguous, labyrinthine sentences and invents in stark black and white panels a visual language that excavates the hidden corners of Conrad's 1899 masterpiece. Capturing the ominous atmosphere and hellish conditions of the Belgian Congo, Kuper transforms this lurid tale of madness, greed and evil into something shockingly modern. Kuper interrogates the problematic legacy of Heart of Darkness by grappling with Conrad's own colonial attitudes and racist imagery which still endure today. Long-time admirers of the novel will see Conrad's opus with new eyes while new readers will discover a brilliant introduction to a classic work.