Joseph Conrad -Nostromo
The book features the largest number of fully developed characters of any of his novels, but two dominate the narrative: Señor Gould and the eponymous anti-hero, the incorruptible Nostromo. The inspiration for the characters comes from a group of mentally ill individuals that Conrad had encountered before writing the book. (from wiki) more
Joseph Conrad -Tifone
Typhoon is a classic sea story, likely based on Conrad's real experience as a sailor and probably also on a true misadventure aboard the real steamship John P. Best. The long tale describes the exploits of Captain MacWhirr as he faces a tropical typhoon at the helm of the Siamese-flagged steamer Nan-Shan, with its human cargo of Chinese coolies heading towards their homeland. (from wiki) more
Joseph Conrad -Al limite estremo
Al limite estremo (The End of the Tether) is a semi-autobiographical story.

Captain Henry Whalley is an honest and experienced sailor, 67 years old, and the commander of the Fair Maid, a ship he owns. A widower, Whalley has only one daughter who lives in Australia and is in financial trouble after marrying an incompetent man. During the voyage, Whalley begins to experience severe visual disturbances; he knows he poses a risk to the ship and the crew, but he cannot relinquish command to protect his daughter: he believes he can still maintain control of the ship despite his near-blindness; however, he does not realize that...
(from wiki) more
Joseph Conrad -Giovinezza
Youth (A Narrative) is an autobiographical tale by the Polish writer Joseph Conrad, who wrote in English.

The second mate of the ship Judea must reach the port of Bangkok with a cargo of coal, but a storm holds them back twice. Then, on the third journey, the cargo catches fire and ignites the ship, and the sailors manage to transfer part of the cargo to the lifeboats... more
Joseph Conrad -Cuore di tenebra
"She had taken stock and had judged. 'The horror!'" Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

This work by Conrad is strongly representative of the author's style and his suggestions. The wild jungle seems to come alive around the reader, with its rustlings and its gloomy mystery. The figure of Kurtz, in particular, holds an hypnotic and magical power, which sometimes transforms into a tragic sense of pity. The stories encountered in Heart of Darkness reference the journey that Conrad took in 1890 aboard the steamer Roi des Belges along the Congo River, in the heart of Africa. Even the characters that populate this book are portraits of real figures whom the author met during that time. (from wiki) more
Joseph Conrad -Racconti inquieti
"Tales of Unrest" (1898) contains five stories:
- Karain: A Memory (November 1897)
- The Idiots (October 1896)
- An Outpost of Progress (June-July 1897)
- The Return (1898)
- The Lagoon (January 1897) more
Joseph Conrad -Lord Jim
There is nothing that delights, disenchants, and enslaves like life at sea; in no other kind of life is the illusion further from reality, in no other is the beginning solely an illusion and disillusionment comes more swiftly while submission is more complete.

.: Joseph Conrad :. more
Joseph Conrad -La follia di Almayer
The novel is inspired by a real person whom Conrad met during a trip to the East Indies.

Kaspar Almayer, a young Dutchman born in the East Indies, wins the favor of the wealthy captain Lingard. Hoping to one day gain access to Lingard's fortune, Almayer agrees to marry the captain's adopted daughter, a Malay girl who has been forced to accept the lifestyle and religion of the colonizers, and to run a trading post in the village of Sambir on the Pantai River in the jungle of Borneo. (source: wiki) more
Joseph Conrad -Il negro del "Narciso"
The author's preface is considered one of his best literary essays and, more generally, a manifesto of Impressionism in literature. According to critics and scholars, the narrative is seen as an allegory on the theme of solidarity and isolation, with the microcosm of the ship representing a scaled-down version of human society.
(cit. wiki) more
Joseph Conrad -Un reietto delle isole
The novel tells the story of Peter Willems, an immoral man with no reputation who, fleeing from Makassar due to a scandal, finds refuge in a village of natives, only to betray his benefactors by seducing the chief's daughter. (cit. wiki) more
Daniil Charms -Casi
Charms himself alluded once to the peculiarity of his way of being with words that were strikingly simple, direct, and precise:
"I am only interested in 'nonsense', only in that which has no practical meaning.
Life interests me only in its absurd manifestation.
Heroism, pathos, daring, morality, emotion, and risk are words and feelings that I find detestable.
But I perfectly understand and admire: enthusiasm and exaltation, inspiration and despair, passion and reserve, debauchery and chastity, sadness and pain, joy and laughter." (cit. Adelphi) more
Bruce Chatwin -Sulla collina nera
This novel is the story of the long life of two identical twins. Lewis and Benjamin Jones for eighty years eat the same food, wear the same clothes, sleep in the same bed, swing the axe with the same motion. They live on a farm called "La Visione," situated on the line that separates Wales from England, in a harsh and sparsely populated landscape. When examined closely, their existence is filled with events, often cruel and violent, but everything unfolds within a ten-mile radius of the farm. (cit. Adelphi) more
Bruce Chatwin -In Patagonia
After the last war, some English boys, including the author of this book, bent over maps, searched for the only right place to escape the next nuclear destruction. They chose Patagonia.
And it was precisely in Patagonia that Bruce Chatwin would venture, not to save himself from a catastrophe, but in pursuit of a prehistoric monster and a seafaring relative.
He found both – and once again he discovered the enchantment of traveling... (from Adelphi) more
Bruce Chatwin -Il viceré di Ouidah
More than a century after the death of a famous slave trader, Dom Francisco da Silva, his numerous descendants gather in Ouidah, Dahomey, "to honor his memory with a requiem mass and a meal." They are a diverse crowd of poor and rich, sharing a common regret: the era of the slave trade, "lost golden age when their family had been wealthy, famous, and white... (from Adelphi)" more
Bruce Chatwin -Le Vie dei Canti
It tells of encounters and picaresque adventures in the depths of Australia. And it is a journey of ideas, a melody of ideas that all stems from a single question: why has man, since the dawn of time, felt an irresistible urge to move, to migrate? (from Adelphi) more
Bruce Chatwin -Utz
Utz's solitary and obsessive life will turn into a game against that enemy, whose stakes are the collection itself, a silent army of beings that must be wrested from the brutal fingertips of every authority... (cit. Adelphi) more
Bruce Chatwin -Che ci faccio qui?
In this book, Bruce Chatwin collected, in the last months before his death, those scattered pieces of his work that marked as many stages of a single adventure, of a whole life intense as "a journey to be made on foot." (from Adelphi) more
Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux -Ritorno in Patagonia
Melville used the adjective "patagonia" to indicate something completely exotic, monstrous, and dangerously alluring. An attraction that also had a profound effect on the young Bruce Chatwin.

Both Chatwin and Theroux belong to that lineage of travelers who find that "a literary association or reference can excite as much as a rare plant or animal." (from Adelphi) more
Bruce Chatwin -L’occhio assoluto
The images that appear in this book were captured in Patagonia and Mauritania, in Australia and Afghanistan, in Mali and Nepal, but often the original location and occasion remain indecipherable, as if the pure randomness of traveling served to bring forth, each time, in a fleeting moment, the complete uniqueness of a fragment of what is, without other attributes, and at the same time the silent astonishment of the eye that catches it. (cit. Adelphi) more
Bruce Chatwin -Anatomia dell’irrequietezza
They are short stories, tales and travel sketches (from beloved Patagonia to Tuscany, from Africa to Capri), portraits (Konrad Lorenz, Axel Munthe, Curzio Malaparte)... from page to page through writings that span twenty years of a brief, intense, wandering life... of a Chatwin who was an art expert and archaeologist, journalist, explorer, and storyteller. (quoted from Adelphi) more