It’s the birthday of Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), the Polish-born author who did not learn any English until his twenties and then went on to become one of the greatest novelists in the English language. (This is crazy hard to do. Attaining native-like proficiency in a second—actually Conrad’s third—language is nearly always impossible for someone who starts learning the language in adulthood, and when I was taught this in a grad school linguistics class, Conrad was mentioned as the Grand Exception.)

Conrad was born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in Berdichev, Ukraine, in the former Russian Empire. His father was a Polish patriot who helped lead an insurrection against the Russians, and thus was arrested and sent into exile in Northern Russia. Conrad’s mother died there of tuberculosis in 1865, and his father died of the same in 1869. After these bleak beginnings, Conrad was raised by his uncle, Tadeusz Bobrowski, who seems to have been a decent and loving guardian. In 1874, thanks to Uncle Bobrowski’s money and connections, Conrad went to sea, joining the French merchant service. Within a couple of years, Conrad got involved in some sketchy arms running and also ran up some debt; he tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the chest, but he got better, like you do, and Uncle Bob stepped in to clear his debts. Conrad then joined a British ship, serving a total of 16 years in the British merchant navy, and along the way became a naturalized British citizen (1886) and had many sea-faring adventures which were to prove useful fodder for his later writing. He also qualified to command a ship, and first did so when the captain of the ship he was serving on died at sea.

Commands were in scarce supply, and Conrad went on to serve as a mate on a Congo River steamboat. His Congo experiences were traumatic both psychologically and physically, in some ways damaging him for life, but on the other hand he later used those experiences to write one of his greatest works, Heart of Darkness, so, you know: silver linings. (NB: Chinua Achebe despised Conrad and “Heart of Darkness” as racist, feeling they denied Africans their full humanity.) In 1894, Uncle Bob died and Conrad sent his first novel, Almayer’s Folly, which he’d started a few years earlier, to a publisher; the novel came out the next year, and Conrad was done with life at sea. In 1896, he published another novel, Outcast of the Islands, and got married. He began to gain a reputation as a writer of exciting, exotic tales, which frustrated him, as he was really focused on exploring universal problems of evil and of the individual in isolation.

“Heart of Darkness” appeared serially in 1898-99, Lord Jim appeared serially in 1899-1900 (read it, liked it, felt crappy and guilty on behalf of Lord Jim), and Nostromo was published in 1904 (was assigned it in an English lit class, could not force myself to read it, felt crappy and guilty for me). Conrad wrote many other novels and stories, had two children, and died of a heart attack at the age of 73.

Have a splendid Monday (ha ha ha) and stay scrupulously honest to the data.