Reading Heart of Darkness 21 Years Later

The picture above is of a Polish translation of Heart of Darkness although the translation is not one of the ones mentioned by Ewa Kujawska-Lis in her comparison of translations from English to Polish.  (Polish was Joseph Conrad's first language.)

To begin with, I'd like to link to my review of Reading Heart of Darkness, a book that juxtaposes five ways of reading this classic novel. 

Link

Interestingly, that twenty-plus year old book did not include Chinua Achebe's critical reading.  Although I discuss it elsewhere, here is a link to Achebe's "An Image of Africa":
http://kirbyk.net/hod/image.of.africa.html

Note that Achebe is one of the founders of modern African literature.  His first novel Things Fall Apart is one of our readings, and it is probably the first modern African novel that everyone reads.

In "An Image of Africa," Achebe fiercely criticizes Conrad for relying on racist stereotypes of Africa and Africans as well as working to perpetuate these stereotypes in his Heart of Darkness.  Furthermore, Achebe maintains that, for the most part, Conrad refuses to let Africans speak in his novella.  Then, he notes that when they are allowed to, their few words confirm European prejudice.  He also criticizes readers for the degree of prejudice that has allowed them to gloss over Conrad's depiction of Africa and Africans.  Achebe particularly censures readers who gloss over Africa, regarding the continent as " merely a setting for the disintegration of the mind of Mr. Kurtz."  For Achebe, Conrad's novel is especially dangerous because it is so central to our conception of literature in English. 

And it is so false.

Indeed, the picture below is an 17th-century engraving of a procession through Benin City, the capital of the Edo kingdom in what is now Nigeria.

Below is a picture of a bronze bowl dating from the ninth or tenth century CE.  (The bowl is from the Igbo, another group or, as Achebe states, "nation," in Nigeria.)

British author Caryl Phillips interviewed Achebe in 2003.  Here, in this article from the Guardian, Achebe expands on his criticism of Conrad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/feb/22/classics.chinuaachebe

Now I'd like to go back to Ewa Kujawska-Lis' "Turning Heart of Darkness into a Racist Text:

A Comparison of Two Polish Translations," an article that appeared in the Summer 2008 Conradiana.  Although Heart of Darkness was written in English, it is extremely interesting to see how the novel would have been translated into the author's first language.  Kujawska-Lis compares two translations.  The first was by Aniela Zagorska, Conrad's cousin whose translation appeared in 1930, shortly after his death.  The cover pictured right above is of Ms. Zagorska's translation, and Kujawska-Lis notes that her text continues to be used in schools.  The second translation is, of course, more recent.  It is Ireneusz Socha's version from 2004, one of several that have appeared in the last twenty years.  Kujawska-Lis has chosen it as it is the most recent version.  Unfortunately, I cannot seem to find a cover for this version although this may be it.


Kujawska-Lis does mention the challenges of translation, specifically the translator's inevitable fingerprints on the text.  For the most part, she focuses on how racial terms and descriptions of Africa and Africans are translated into Polish.  As Conrad's first language was Polish, she argues that Zagorska's translation may provide a window on Conrad's attitude towards race.  Yet, being the author's cousin and friend, she also would have had an interest in representing him and his work favorably.  Kujawska-Lis suggests that Zagorska recognized the harshness of the English terms that her cousin used to describe Africans.  Socha's translation, on the other hand, reflects current readings of Conrad's work, particularly Achebe's, and perhaps even a reaction towards Conrad's current status in Poland.  (Ironically, during his lifetime, Conrad was criticized for "abandoning" Poland to live in England and write in English.)  More recently, she observes, Polish readers view Conrad as a moralist and a "national treasure" whose characters inspired readers during WWII.

Overall, Kujawska-Lis describes Zagorska's tendencies as "humanizing" and Socha's as "dehumanizing."  For example, the earlier translator's word choices emphasize the humanity of the Africans whereas the later translator's choices liken them to animals.  She appears to consider Zagorska's choices to be more deliberate and Socha's to be more careless even though his version has a clear ideological bias. 

Kujawska-Lis also criticizes Achebe for an exaggerated reading of Conrad.  However, as she also indicates in her article, her perspective is quite different from his, and she recognizes that she is writing about Conrad's impact on a specific audience, namely Polish readers who are oriented towards Polish history.

For more information about Conrad's multilingualism, see this article by Dr. Alicia Pousada of the University of Puerto Rico:

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~apousada/id4.html