Joseph Conrad was 50 to 100 years ahead of his time. His story of European exploitation of Africa and the underlying racism that empowered that still, sadly has many parallels to our world.
It's a novella so it's quick read, with beautiful pros. Interestingly enough, English was not Conrad's native language. But you couldn't tell that from his prose.
The movie, Apocalypse Now was loosely based and inspired by this this book with some dialogues completely copied over.
There is an audiobook version of it on iTunes [0] by Ralph Cosham. His narrative voice is so soothing that I listen to it sometime to fall asleep when I'm unable to turn off my brain.
The Blind Owl, Sadegh Hedayat and translated by D.P. Costello is a great read if you're into Kafka.
I read the book both in original language, Farsi and its translation in English. The translation is excellent.
Hedayat translated the work of Kafka in Farsi. Which might explain some resemblance between Blind Owl and some of Kafka's writings. Ultimately and tragically he committed suicide in his Paris apartment.
Sohrab Sepehri, Iranian poet is still largely under-discovered in US. There is a recent translation that seems to have done justice to his poetry [1]. A decade ago, I foolishly partnered with a colleague and a poet to translate some of his poems. I translated one poem, it was the most stressful thing I ever did and something, I will never try again [2].
Joseph Conrad was 50 to 100 years ahead of his time. His story of European exploitation of Africa and the underlying racism that empowered that still, sadly has many parallels to our world.
It's a novella so it's quick read, with beautiful pros. Interestingly enough, English was not Conrad's native language. But you couldn't tell that from his prose.
The movie, Apocalypse Now was loosely based and inspired by this this book with some dialogues completely copied over.
There is an audiobook version of it on iTunes [0] by Ralph Cosham. His narrative voice is so soothing that I listen to it sometime to fall asleep when I'm unable to turn off my brain.
[0] https://itunes.apple.com/us/audiobook/heart-of-darkness-unab...
The Blind Owl, Sadegh Hedayat and translated by D.P. Costello is a great read if you're into Kafka.
I read the book both in original language, Farsi and its translation in English. The translation is excellent.
Hedayat translated the work of Kafka in Farsi. Which might explain some resemblance between Blind Owl and some of Kafka's writings. Ultimately and tragically he committed suicide in his Paris apartment.
Sohrab Sepehri, Iranian poet is still largely under-discovered in US. There is a recent translation that seems to have done justice to his poetry [1]. A decade ago, I foolishly partnered with a colleague and a poet to translate some of his poems. I translated one poem, it was the most stressful thing I ever did and something, I will never try again [2].
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Oasis-Now-Selected-Translations-Selec...
[2] http://www.caveat-lector.org/1601/html/1601_poetry_sepehri1....