Dunja Badnjević Orazi Libri

Il romanzo è ambientato negli anni dell'ascesa e del declino dell'impero napoleonico, tra il 1806 e il 1814. A Travnik, capitale della Bosnia ancora parte dell'impero ottomano, viene inviato il console francese Daville. Travnik è il luogo di una singolare mescolanza etnica e storica, un miscuglio di musulmani, ebrei e cristiani. Ma gli abitanti di Travink sono anche gente ostinata, che non si fida degli stranieri, gente subdola e fiera, capace di efferate crudeltà come di grandi generosità.

Written in 1915, The Shadow-Line is based upon events and experiences from twenty-seven years earlier to which Conrad returned obsessively in his fiction. A young sea captain's first command brings with it a succession of crises: his sea is becalmed, the crew laid low by fever, and his deranged first mate is convinced that the ship is haunted by the malignant spirit of a previous captain. This is indeed a work full of "sudden passions," in which Conrad is able to show how the full intensity of existence can be experienced by the man who, in the words of the older Captain Giles, is prepared to "stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes, to his conscience." A subtle and penetrating analysis of the nature of manhood, The Shadow-Line investigates varieties of masculinity and desire in a subtext that counters the tale's seemingly conventional surface.