Nostromo (Barnes & Noble Classics)

 

One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo is an immensely exciting tale of love, revolution, and politics set in the mythical South American country of Costaguana during the 1890s.

Ten years after his father is murdered by a brutal dictator, Englishman Charles Gould arrives in Costaguana to reopen the family silver mine. But instead of ushering in a shining era of prosperity and progress, the return of the silver engenders a new cycle of violence as Costaguana erupts in civil war, initiated by rival warlords determined to seize the mine and its riches. In desperation, Gould turns to the only man who can save the mine’s treasure—Nostromo, the incorruptible head of the local dockworkers, who protects the silver from rebel forces by taking it out to sea. But disaster strikes, burdening Nostromo with a terrible secret that forever alters the fate of everyone involved with the mine.

A stunning monument to futility, Nostromo reveals how honor, idealism, and loyalty are inadequate defenses against the inexorable assault of corruption and evil.

Brent Edwards is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Rutgers University.  He is author of The Practice of Diaspora (Harvard University Press, 2003) and co-editor of Uptown Conservation: The New Jazz Studies (Columbia University Press, 2004).