Joseph Konrad the writer is another particular character whom the author writes about during the book. It is revealed that the writer of 'The Heart of Darkness' (which attacked the effects of colonialism) himself had a lost, a forgotten past in which his father was a Polish social activist against their Russian occupiers during the nineteenth century and he saw both his parents pass away before becoming a sailor and working for the colonial expansion into the Congo.
Konrad is depicted as a chronicler of his times, but also as a relic of a past time, of pompous empires with expansionist aims. The author studies the writers life story and his works as a way to highlight the similarities and differences to our own times: how sometimes great atrocities can be covered over, forgotten or misunderstood.
Konrad can be seen alternately as a poor figure in the book, who was himself not able to fight against the human rights abuses that he saw committed against the Congolese, and we are reminded of just how shockingly relevant this story is for our modern times of Globalisation. The story of Konrad and his involvement with Roger Casement and the Congo is in itself a very fitting piece of 'lost information' that itself could become an important fact for understanding our own modern times.
The very fact that the author focuses so much attention on Konrad (and some of the historical figures in the book) points to the authors belief that by understanding individuals we can come to understand history, and that sometimes the vagaries of chance (of one person meeting and influencing another) could be the pivot that changes the course of civilisation, were we to understand all of these individual connections deeply enough.
