Charles Marlow is the captain of a river steamboat for an ivory trading company. He travels up the Congo River to find Mr. Kurz, the manager of an important trading station, who is worshiped by the natives and very dangerous. Joseph Conrad witnessed the European exploitation of the Congo first-hand. He himself once sailed up the Congo River to locate a countryman at a trading station deep within the country – although this man's name was not Kurtz. The character Conrad later created for his novel has become synonymous with the goal and the enigma of the river journey, and remains one of the most unforgettable fictional characters of the 20th century.   JOSEPH CONRAD [1857–1924] was born in Ukraine to Polish parents. At the age of seventeen, he went to sea, and he ended his career as a captain in the English merchant navy. His most well-known work is the novella Heart of Darkness [1899], which has been adapted numerous times for film, radio, and television, most famously into the film Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola in 1979.