Main content

Heart of Darkness: Conrad and Orwell

Cultural discussion programme. Andrew Marr discusses empire and the changing world order with Maya Jasanoff, Robert Colls, Ishion Hutchinson and Gideon Rachman.

Andrew Marr discusses the work of Joseph Conrad with his biographer Maya Jasanoff. Conrad wrote about the underbelly of colonialism, terrorism, immigration and isolation and Jasanoff looks at the turn of the twentieth century through the lens of his life and work. While Conrad's Nostromo reflected the changing world order with the emerging dominance of the US and global capitalism, the FT columnist Gideon Rachman looks at the decline of the West amidst the growing power of the East, as well as reflecting on Britain's imperial amnesia. A young George Orwell was also part of the British colonial system in its slow death throes in Burma and the academic Robert Colls explores how these experiences shaped his later work. Ishion Hutchinson has been called a post-colonial poet and his latest collection is haunted by Jamaica's fractured past.
Producer: Katy Hickman.

Available now

43 minutes

Last on

Mon 6 Nov 2017 21:30

Maya Jasanoff

Maya Jasanoff is Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard University.聽

The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World is published by William Collins.

Robert Colls

Robert Colls is Research Professor of English History at De Montford University. He has held visiting fellowships at the universities of Oxford, Dortmund and Yale.聽

George Orwell: English Rebel is published by OUP.

Ishion Hutchinson

Ishion Hutchinson an Assistant Professor of English at Cornell University and an award-winning poet.

House of Lords and Commons is published by聽Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Gideon Rachman

Gideon Rachman is the chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times.

Easternisation: War and Peace in the Asian Century is published by Bodley Head

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Andrew Marr
Interviewed Guest Maya Jasanoff
Interviewed Guest Robert Colls
Interviewed Guest Ishion Hutchinson
Interviewed Guest Gideon Rachman
Producer Katy Hickman

Broadcasts

  • Mon 6 Nov 2017 09:00
  • Mon 6 Nov 2017 21:30

Podcast